


The Call

by DemonzDust



Series: Wolves At War [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (but not betweem any of the ships listed), Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, Blood and Gore, Bottom Theo Raeken, Briam, Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Hurt Brett Talbot, Hurt Theo Raeken, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suspense, Top Scott McCall, Torture, sceo - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2018-12-17 19:05:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11857773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonzDust/pseuds/DemonzDust
Summary: After receiving a disturbing voicemail, Scott is forced to put aside his reservations and save a chimera he has complicated feelings for. Meanwhile Liam races against the clock to find Brett before it’s too late and Gabe and Nolan struggle to follow through with Monroe's orders.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set during 6B, with some canon divergence.

Scott sighs as he heaves a trash bag full of wet clothing out of the Jeep and throws it over his shoulder.

He's not sure why the dryer always seems to break down when it's late at night and he desperately needs something clean to put on the next day, but it feels like an almost regular occurrence. In the past he would call Stiles to come pick him up and use the dryer in the Stilinski home, but it’s been a few weeks since Stiles left for Quantico and it seems strange to ask Sheriff Stilinski if he can use his appliances.

As he pushes open the glass door to the warmly lit 24-hour laundromat he's surprised to find another patron inside waiting for his cloths to dry. It’s so late he’d thought for sure he’d have the place to himself.

He’s even more surprised to see that the patron is Theo Raeken.

He hasn’t seen or heard from Theo since their fight against the Ghost Riders. They’d spoken briefly afterwards only long enough for Scott to issue him a warning: stay out of trouble, or get locked up.

But just because he hadn’t seen Theo, didn’t mean Theo hadn’t occupied space in Scott’s thoughts. His mind often drifted to Theo when he was alone at night, staring sleeplessly up at his ceiling.

It was easy to keep up his cold exterior towards all things Theo in front of his pack. They look to him for guidance, and he can’t leave them vulnerable to Theo again. He’s cold to Theo because he _has_ to be for his pack’s safety.

But when he’s alone, he’s haunted by memories of the small, innocent boy he’d known in fourth grade. The one with soft eyes and a fragile smile. Theo and the Dread Doctors could go on all they wanted, but no one would ever be able to convince him that _that_ boy had been evil.

“Hey.” Scott mutters, unsure of what else to say as he drops his bag down at the dryer as farthest from Theo’s as he can find.

Ever since Theo’s betrayal, being around him has been both painful and unnerving. He wants to believe that Theo can change, that he _has_ changed, but he knows the danger in that line of thought.

Theo’s a liar and a user. He’s used sympathy and compassion against people, and he’s more than capable of pulling off a long con.

Theo looks about as uncomfortable as Scott feels.

“Hey.” he says back, and quickly turns his gaze towards the timer on his dryer.

Scott can’t help but notice that Theo looks different. His eyes are avoidant and his hair is slightly unkempt. There’s a tiredness in his posture, and on a closer look Scott can see that he’s not wearing a shirt underneath the thin light red hoodie clinging to his torso.

It’s not the polished, suave Theo he’d become accustomed to.

Scott quickly looks back at his own clothes tumbling in the dryer before him.

It’s none of his business what Theo is doing here, or why he doesn’t own more than one load of clothing. As long as Theo isn’t hurting anyone it has _nothing_ to do with him.

Fifty-nine minutes to go.

He glances back at Theo.

He _really_ doesn’t look good.

Perhaps sensing Scott’s gaze, Theo shifts uncomfortably and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

“So uh...” Scott starts in awkward attempt at conversation to cover the fact that he’d just been scrutinizing his appearance. “Your dryer break down too?”

Theo’s eyes shift to meet Scott’s gaze briefly before looking back at his cloths.

“Yeah.” responds, his voice shifty and avoidant. “Something like that...”

From his tone, Scott gets the feeling that’s very far from the truth, but before he can ponder why he might be lying, Theo’s wrenching the dryer open and quickly stuffing it’s contents into a ragged duffle bag.

Scott can tell from the still slightly musty scent of the clothing that it’s not entirely dry yet, and a small ripple of guilt rolls through him for making Theo uncomfortable enough to pull his clothes out early.

For a fleeting moment, a half dozen unsavory reasons why Theo might be washing cloths past midnight flash through his mind (maybe they were covered in blood - maybe Theo hurt someone and is disposing of evidence) but as Theo quickly zips up the bag Scott notices a toothbrush, shaving razor, and half empty bottle of body wash inside it, and he realizes he’s not really sure where Theo is living now a days.

Before he can convince himself not to, he’s grabbing Theo by the forearm as he walks by.

“Hey, Theo?” he asks, trying to keep his grip as uninvasive as possible. “Are you...are you okay?”

It feels like a dumb question. A question he shouldn’t be asking. He doesn’t owe Theo anything...but he _can’t_ help himself.

Theo looks at him like a stray dog caught in headlights, his strong arm feels weak in Scott’s hand, and it seems as though he might start trembling.

 _No, I’m not okay._ His eyes seem to call out desperately. _I’m lost. I’m broken. I’m scared. I’m so lonely I feel like I’m drowning. I feel guilt and remorse but I can’t express it. I need help but can’t ask for it. I’m trying my hardest to be better than what I was but I have no one and it’s slowly killing me..._

Scott feels a dull ache in his chest and a twisting in his stomach. He wants to pull Theo closer, even though he shouldn’t.

His thumb moves, almost unconsciously over the worn fabric covering Theo’s forearm, and he’s about to cave into his instincts to offer Theo some physical comfort, when Theo’s eyes turn cold and hardened.

His mouth contorts into his trademark smug smirk.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks nonchalantly. “And would you really care if I wasn’t?”

Despite his measured and casual response, Scott remains unconvinced.

He swallows.

He really _shouldn’t_ care. But he does, and he can’t help it.

Before he can work out an answer, Theo’s lightly brushing Scott’s hand off him and moving towards the door again.

“Goodnight, Scott.” he says, and the bells on the door chime behind him on his way out.

Scott watches his back as he tosses the duffle bag into the empty passenger's seat of his truck and disappears into the cab.

In a moment he's watching the headlights flash as Theo pulls away into the thick darkness blanketing the quiet streets of this lonely corner of town.

As he listens to the dull thudding of his drying cloths, his heart continues to twist in his chest.

Why does he still want to protect Theo so badly?

 

*     *     *

 

“ _Fuck_.” Theo swears and slaps his steering wheel with frustrated embarrassment.

That had been fucking humiliating.

The last person on earth he wanted to see him grimy and uncared for, doing his laundry at two in the morning was Scott McCall.

Couldn’t it have been _anyone_ else?

Any other member of Scott’s pack probably would have just ignored him, or offered some kind of antagonism. Even Liam, who he’d saved from the Ghost Riders more than once, would have been more cold to him out of loyalty to his alpha.

No one would look at him like they felt bad for him the way Scott had. Scott couldn’t hide the pity in his eyes, or the concern in his touch, and it made Theo’s stomach twist to think about how he deserved neither. Especially not from Scott.

He hates himself for how he’d almost broken down under Scott’s worried gaze. For a second it felt like Scott was going to pull him closer and it was disgusting how much Theo’d wanted him to do it.

“ _Fucking stupid_.” Theo mutters again, his vision beginning as he furiously wipes a set of gathering tears from his eyes at a traffic light.

It had been a long time since he’d wanted something like that. Since he’d _let_ himself want something like that. For the longest time he’d been content to let himself believe that the Dread Doctors had killed any desires he’d had for intimate human (or werewolf for that matter) contact like that.

He can all but remember the moment it had happened. He was lying on his back, strapped to a cold metal table, screaming and crying for his parents, when the surgeon had leaned over him, his head tilting almost curiously as he readied a drill.

“Screaming, futile.” His mechanical voice crackled out at him. “No one will come for you. You will not be missed. No one cares to save you. Your heart is flawed. They will not save you.”

Theo still doesn’t know if he was talking about his terminal heart condition or the fact that he was broken and imperfect inside. At the time, he’d taken it to mean both, and had stopped screaming. It was true that no one cared enough to save him. No one even cared enough to _believe_ him about what was happening.

He’d stopped wanting his parents to hug him after that. He’d stopped wanting them to touch him altogether. It wasn’t until he was forced to playout that nightmarish scene with Tara over and over again that he found himself wanting it again.

He laughs bitterly at the irony of how it’d taken being broken a second time to be able to feel a basic human need again. Except, when he had wanted physical touch back then he’d still been innocent enough to deserve it.

Now he needs it more than ever and the want makes him sick.

He pulls off the road into the first abandoned parking lot he sees, determined to pull himself together before causing an accident.

Once parked, he sighs, hands still gripping the steering wheel, and drops his head down onto them.

The need is worse than ever. The silence around him is deafening. The emptiness of the deserted lot feels as though it’s closing in around him, smothering him.

He takes a breath to steady himself.

Why did Scott have to look at him like that? Touch him as if there was some semblance of hope that things could ever be healed between them?

He knows Scott probably didn’t see it, but to pretend, even for a flicker of a moment that there was even the _possibility_ that he might forgive Theo and give him a second chance was downright _cruel_.

He isn’t ever going to have a place in Scott’s pack, and they both know it.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and rubs at his eyes again.

It didn’t help that Scott had looked as perfect as ever.

He must have just taken a shower, because his caramel skin was scented with subtle prickly notes of a cinnamon and pine body wash. His hair looked like he’d just tousled it dry with a towel on his way out the door.

Theo had to have looked like such a mess in front of him, standing there not wearing a shirt, tired and hungry and barely holding it together. He hadn’t had a proper shower in more than a week, or a full night’s sleep in god knows how long. He can’t even remember the last time he’d had a hair cut.

And almost _crying_ in front of him. Like some kind of wounded baby.

He must have looked so pathetic.

*     *     *

A few weeks later, Theo is staring down at Scott’s name in his contacts, his finger trembling over the call button.

He doesn't deserve to call. He knows he doesn't deserve to call. He deserves to let these spiders, whatever the hell they are, eat him alive.

He’s not sure if he’ll be able to take a verbal kick to the teeth from Scott right now if he decides to deliver it. If Scott refuses to help him, he’s not sure he won’t break down, beg, and cry.

But before he can make up his mind, the cab of the truck is flooded with a bright light and there’s a tap at the glass window beside him. When he turns his head he’s looking down the long barrel of a rifle.

He’s surrounded.

Trembling, he raises his arms, phone still in hand.

 _This is it._ He thinks, as the bullets tear into him and he screams. _You never even had the courage to tell him you were sorry..._

The phone slips from his hand as his body slumps down across the seats. It’s glowing screen falls out of his sight as red streaks of blood splatter the windows and dashboard.

Through the fire and his own cries of pain Theo doesn’t hear the response:

_Hey this is Scott, please leave a message. Thanks._


	2. Chapter 2

Sweat rolls down Liam's brow and the early September sun blares hot through the wire of his helmet as he fumes up at the much taller lacrosse captain in front of him.

“How long is it going to take you to explode?”

Brett is  _ supposedly _ here to help him, but he's got a funny way of showing it.

“Keep it up and I'm going to explode all over your face!” Liam growls, slamming Brett in the chest with his crosse.

Brett glares down at him as he plants his feet and refuses to slide back even an inch from the shove. Liam almost immediately regrets his choice of words as Brett raises a smug eyebrow at him.

“Aww, Liam,” Brett antagonistically smirks at him. “Is that the kind of charming romance that lost you your girlfriend?”

“ _ Screw you _ !” Liam snaps back.

He can feel the rage boiling up inside him, flooding his blood with burning venom, and his teeth and fingernails start to itch.

“Liam!” The firm voice of his alpha cuts across the lacrosse field and Liam immediately feels some of his sanity restored. 

He disengages with Brett roughly and makes his way over to Scott.

He can hear Corey talking to Mason as he walks over.

“I don't get it.” Mason is whispering. “What happened?”

“Liam just accidentally threatened to cum on Brett’s face, I think.” Corey said nonchalantly, and Mason burst out laughing.

Liam's cheeks burn furious and embarrassed.

“Hey,” he says to Scott, but it comes out as a growl. “I've texted you like  _ nine times _ this morning, what gives?”

“Phone charger broke.” Scott explained. “I'm going to pick up a new one later today.”

Liam's barely even listening to Scott’s answer, imagining the smug punchable smirk that must be on Brett's face right now as his best friend continues to laugh at his expense.

“But don't change the subject.” Scott says, tugging the sleeve of Liam's jersey to make him look up and meet his eyes. “You need to pull yourself together. You can do this. It doesn’t matter what Brett, or anyone else says to you. They can’t rattle you if you don’t let them.  _ You’re _ in control of how you feel, not them.”

“Well it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.” Liam grumbles, but let's Scott’s words sink in.

“Well, it’s true, even if it doesn’t feel like it.” Scott says, clapping him on the shoulder.

“You good?” he asks with a smile.

He’s not really good, but he doesn’t want to let his alpha down. He can’t keep relying on Scott when he’s going to be leaving for college so soon.

He needs to show Scott he can make it on his own.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Hearing the lie, Scott laughs.

“You will be.” he promises with an encouraging nod.

 

*     *     *

 

Scott has a lot he needs to get done before the day is through, but he indulges himself with a few more minutes of watching his beta lead the team of rookies through practice.

The air is filled with the scents of warm grass, sweat, and heated plastic. Scott’s lacrosse days are over, save for maybe practicing with Liam when he comes home for break, but his memories of it will always be sweet.

Watching Liam and Brett engage one another on the field makes him oddly sentimental for the days when Jackson was the biggest threat in his life. Although Brett is a lot nicer than Jackson ever was. 

Maybe it’s wish fulfillment to hope that Liam and Brett would one day become the kind of friends that he and Jackson never had the chance to become, but he still wants it.

On the side of the field Brett is pulling his jersey over his head and stripping his gear off to pour some water over himself while Liam seems to be looking everywhere  _ but _ the enticing scene.

“Are you going to put your shirt on anytime soon?” Liam nags at him.

“Why? Does it bother you?” Brett calls back. “Make you want to explode all over my face even more?”

“NO!"

Scott can’t help but laugh.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he turns toward the parking lot, leaving Liam to work through his complicated lacrosse drama on his own.

 

*     *     *

 

Theo's head is pounding when he opens his eyes. From the musty scents and heavy darkness, he knows he must be somewhere underground.

_ Big surprise _ . Theo thinks bitterly. 

People are just so uncreative with their hideouts.

“Finally awake now, are you?” a voice calls out to him.

Theo rolls his eyes and groans internally.

He hasn't been able to focus his eyes yet, but he doesn't need to see the man to know what he's dealing with. The tone of his voice is a dead giveaway: Middle-management lacky looking to indulge his sadistic tendencies. He likes inflicting pain, but what really gets him off is the thrilling rush of power that accompanies it.

This isn't even close to Theo's first time on the torture-for-pleasure merry-go-round, and this clown is nothing special. 

But that doesn't mean that it will be easy. 

This type of person is more difficult to bargain with or manipulate than someone who is torturing for a reason. Theo’s been in enough scrapes similar to this to know that even giving in and begging might not actually make this man stop. In fact, it might actually encourage him.

He keeps his head down, hoping to be able to feign half-consciousness for at least a little longer, when he's dashed with a bucket of ice cold water.

“ _ Argh _ !” he shouts, shaking frigid droplets from his hair. “ _ Unnecessary _ ...!”

“I know it isn't necessary.” The man says, vindication dripping in every syllable. “That's what makes it so fun...”

Theo finally looks at the man, and realizes he knows him. 

Schrader, that sick fuck from Eichen House. 

He keeps the recognition to himself, however, as the former orderly steps closer to him. He's not sure how that knowledge can help him yet.

Theo’s eyes flicker down the former orderly’s form to the long shock baton in his hand.

_ Awesome. _

Schrader eyes Theo carefully, placing the end of the shock baton to Theo’s throat, and slipping it down his dripping wet torso as if trying to choose the best place to deliver the first jolt. Of course Theo’s well aware that the point is actually to get him to tremble and dread the inevitable.

Shrader has  _ no idea _ who he’s dealing with, here. 

Theo doesn’t move an inch, keeping his breath steady and unwavering.

“Are you going to make me wait all day?” he asks, smugly.

On cue, Shrader jabs him in the ribs.

“You’ve got a smart mouth, kid.” he says as he pulls the baton back.

“You must be new to this.” Theo says with a bitter laugh, despite the burning pain in his body. “Typically you’re supposed to ask me a few questions before you get started...”

“I don’t have any questions.” 

Another jab. This time it’s longer and Theo needs to take three heavy breaths before he can talk again.

“I hate to break it to you, but this isn't my first time...” he pants, looking up at Schrader with a masochistic smirk. “Sorry. That's not going to spoil this experience for you, is it?”

Another jab, this time much longer and more intense. Theo’s body jolts and wriggles involuntarily, sweat and tears roll down his neck.

He stifles a whimper in his throat when the man finally pulls the baton away.

_ Fuck you, I like it. _ Theo thinks stubbornly, his chest heaving just as his body is electrified once again.

_ Fuck you, I like it. _

_ Fuck you, I like... _

_ Fuck... _

 

*     *     *

 

Practice goes well, but Liam is still sour as he pulls his gear off and stores it in his locker.

Brett had to be the most annoying helpful person he'd ever met. 

With his time in Beacon Hills under Scott’s wing Liam had almost forgotten about how much a smug and antagonist shit Brett was when they were on the same team at Devenford.

“You need to take it down a thousand.” Brett says beside him as he unbuckles his chestplate, and Liam flinches in annoyance.

“Yeah?” he barks, storing his gloves in the overhead locker shelf and pulling his shirt over his head. “Well I don't recall asking you for your opinion.”

“You asked me to help.”

“I asked you to help me  _ train the team _ ! Not come over here and critique my personality!”

Brett shrugs, pulling his chest plate off and tossing it into his bag.

He then runs a hand through his hair, causing all manner of unwanted fluttery feelings to course through Liam's body.

“Why would I do that?” He asks. “We’re on opposite teams. My team is going to  _ crush _ yours this season, and when we do, I'm going to laugh my ass off.”

Liam growls and grabs a towel from his locker.

“Okay, then why the hell did you agree to come today?” He asks. “Just trying to sabotage us by pissing me off all day?”

Brett leans against a closed locker, and narrows his eyes at Liam.

“I thought I told you why.” He says.

Liam tries not to feel uncomfortable under Brett's gaze, but he can't help himself from fidgeting.

“Yeah.” He says frustratedly. “You did. But I never invited you to come here and give me a list of things I should try to change about myself. I have an alpha for that, thanks. How would you like it if I showed up at Devenford and started telling  _ you _ all the stuff you need to work on?”

“Well, first off, you  _ can't _ show up at Devenford because you're permanently banned from the school grounds...” a smirk lights Brett's lips as he leans in closer to Liam. “And second, what could you  _ possibly _ tell me to change?”

Liam flushes deeply as he has to tilt his head back to keep eye contact with the much taller boy.

He's pretty sure Brett does this on purpose to call attention to the height difference between them.

“I'd tell you to wipe that smug, arrogant, ‘I just have it all figured out’ expression off your face.” Liam retorts, and Brett laughs.

“Yeah, but I  _ do _ have it all figured out.”

“Yeah well, if someone punches you in the face for it, it’ll be your own fault.” Liam grumbles as he turns away to finish undressing.

He can feel Brett's eyes on him, rolling over his shoulders and down the lines of his back.

“No, it wouldn’t.” Brett says, more seriously. “The one that throws the punch is  _ always _ the one at fault.”

Liam steals a glance back at him.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Liam asks, stealing a glance back over his shoulder.

Brett doesn't answer, just turns away to finishing undressing himself. But Liam has an idea of what he might be getting at.

_ This is your fault _ . 

It's what Liam would say whenever he got angry enough to pummel someone - which, back at Devenford, was all the time.

Brett had pulled him off more that one of their teammates in the locker room. Despite being half the size of most of the other players, the sudden and furious force that would well up inside Liam was often more than enough to allow him to overpower them.

In retrospect, Brett being there was extremely fortunate, because if no one had been there to pull him off others he's not sure how far he would have taken it.

Back in those days, before he had Scott's watchful eyes on him, tempering his every move, fury would well up inside him at even the smallest offense and once it had, he couldn’t see right from wrong or friend from foe.

It was like a switch flipped in his brain and he just wanted to break the first thing he saw. He wanted to make people pay, and he didn’t care who.

Even thinking about those bursts of anger now makes his blood rush faster and he has to steady his breathing.

“Yeah, I guess.” Liam finally agrees sullenly and heads to the showers.

_ This is your fault. _

The words stick with him as he lets the warm water spray onto his face.

It wasn't just what Liam had told others when he laid into them, it was what he'd been told at least a few times a week before his mother had gotten a divorce. Back when he'd had to go to school hiding bruises and deep belt lashes.

It was humiliating and nerve wracking, rushing to change his clothes as quickly as he could so no one would notice. If someone caught a glance and called his mother then  _ that _ would have been his fault too.

But how could he hide a black eye?

He wasn’t going to go to school wearing makeup like his mom wore to work.

Those had been dark times, but things eventually got better. 

His mom met his stepdad shortly after separating from the creep. His stepdad had taught him how to play lacrosse and could afford to pay for a really nice private school, everything was going well till he lost it at Devenford.

Then the only thing messing up his mom’s life was Liam with the constant fights and then that mess with the teacher’s car. They’d been so disappointed, and he never wanted to make them feel like that again, but wanting that and being able to follow-through on it were two very different things.

The rage bottled up inside him never truly went away. He got better at hiding it, better at stuffing it down, but it was always there, simmering just under the surface, looking for an opportunity to boil.

Until fate delivered him into the hands of his alpha. Scott made everything better. He looked at Liam like he understood, and when he was around, Liam found it easier to let the anger drain from him.

Scott wasn’t just his alpha, he was his anchor.

And now he’s going to be leaving, and Liam's not sure what he's going to do.

*     *     *

Brett keeps tracking Liam’s movements out of the corner of his eye, stealing glances at him as he showers in sullen silence. The thick steam in the room curls around his frame as his brow knits in thought and Brett can tell his mind has wandered into dark places.

He didn’t come here to watch Liam sulk. He came to check in on him, see how he’s doing…and  _ maybe _ to let him know that he won’t be alone when Scott leaves in a few days, but Liam hasn’t seemed to pick up on any of that.

He bites his lip, watching the water rush over Liam’s body, wondering where his mind has gone, and searching for an easy opportunity to break him out of his thoughts.

He could straight up ask Liam what he’s thinking about, but the thought of it feels so awkward. 

Openness like that doesn’t come easily to him. Brett's better at providing the ‘poke him in the ribs and tell him he's short’ type of comfort.

He wouldn’t even tell Lorilee where he was going today, because he didn’t want the knowing side-eye she’d given him the last time he’d said he was going to hang out with Liam.

Liam opens his mouth and lets the shower water fall into and spill over the sides of his mouth before turning his head to spit it out onto the floor, and Brett has to immediately look away to not risk making the situation even more awkward.

“You know that’s disgusting, right?” Brett asks, even though ‘disgusting’ is probably the last thing he thought it looked.

Liam’s eyes snap open and he whips his head around to face Brett, his mind immediately reeled back from whatever path it had wondered down.

“Excuse me? Are you watching me _shower_?” Liam accuses, a bright red blush visible on his cheeks even through the thick blanket of steam.

Brett could lie. He could say that he just heard the sound of him spitting. It would be believable.

But what was the fun in that?

“Do you  _ want me _ to watch you shower?” he asks back, and watches Liam’s blush deepens.

 

*     *     *

Liam stares at Brett in disbelief.

Fuck whatever the hell he was just thinking about – is Brett trying to  _ flirt  _ with him right now?

Is he okay with Brett trying to flirt with him?

“Do  _ you _ want me to want you to watch me shower?” he fires back, trying to control the nervous slamming in his chest.

For a few moments, Brett doesn’t answer, just lets the streaming water bounce off his sharply defined body, smirking and staring at Liam in amused silence, before letting his eyes travel slowly up and down Liam.

Liam doesn’t move, and doesn’t fill the silence. He tries not to fidget, wracking his brain for what he might say if Brett’s answer is ‘yes’.

“Nope.” Brett says conceitedly, closing his eyes and turning his face back into the stream of water above him with that same infuriatingly self-satisfied smile on his wet lips. “I just wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

Liam’s face burns as fury flares through his chest and a choked sound of disgust leaves his lips. 

He turns back to his shower, willing himself to calm down.

_ The Sun. The Moon. And the Truth. _

_ The Sun. The Moon. And the Fucking Truth. _

Liam seethes for the remainder of the short shower. Brett could be  _ such  _ an asshole when he wanted to be. 

 

*     *     *

 

Theo gasps as another bucket of ice cold water dashes his body, keeping him from passing out. Every muscle hurts so bad he can barely feel it anymore. He’s slumped over, chest heaving, sweat and ice cold water dripping down his face, the only thing keeping him upright is the binds on his wrists, securing him to the chain link wall.

Hours must have passed. 

It has to have been at least a full day of this, with Schrader only stopping briefly to eat his lunch - a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. He’d made sure to eat it close enough to Theo so that he could smell the meat and cheese in it, and Theo couldn’t remember the last time he hated someone so much.

The hunger and thirst is getting to him almost more than the pain. He’s never been denied food and water for so long, and it’s not the kind of torture he’s used to. But he’s not going to ask for it. Asking will only make this sick fuck want to withhold it more.

Theo’s body convulses again with another poke from the shock baton.

“Aren’t you getting bored with this?” Theo pants, looking up at Schrader with effort.

“Why, had enough yet?” Shrader asks, his eyes lighting up.

Theo laughs, because he knows where this is going. Shader wants him to say yes so he can go off on a rant about how it’s not going to end, it’ll be enough when he says it is blah, blah, fucking blah.

“Not even  _ close _ .” he growls in answer.

The series of shocks that follow are brutal. Theo can’t help the small whines from slipping past his lips.

“It sounds like you’re pretty close to me.” Shrader observes, pulling the rod back and glancing at its tip.

And Theo hates how true it is.

 

*     *     *

 

After Brett’s smartass comments, Liam spends the rest of his shower seething and furiously scrubbing his body clean. He can't shake the thought of Brett watching him now that it's been put in his head and it's making him extremely...agitated?

He can't stop himself from wondering what Brett's hands would feel like on his skin, sliding over his shoulders and down his back. It's extra annoying that the thought of it isn't exactly as unappealing as he’d like it to be. 

Brett is exasperating. They’re only barely friends. Why is he now wondering what Brett's nails might feel like digging into his hips, his teeth on the back of his neck...?

He turns the water off and stomps back towards his locker, Brett close behind him.

He needs to stop thinking about this, and fast. 

He wants to change the subject and talk about something else, but he’s too embarrassed to open his mouth again, and it isn’t till they’re both fully clothed that he feels his sanity start to return to him.

“So...uh....” he says, as he watches Brett towel-dry the last bits of water from his hair. 

“Thanks for helping out today, I guess.”

He bites down on his lip and refrains from adding ‘ _ Even if you were a major pain in the ass all day _ .’

“It was nothing.” he says, as he tosses the towel into his bag and slings it over his shoulder. “Just an opportunity to spy on how much your team sucks is all.”

But by now Liam knows that it isn’t true. Brett came to try to piss him off and provide him with a number of reasons to rage out (something Brett was exceedingly good at) to give him an opportunity to learn to control it.

Still though, it was kind of nice that he was trying to help.

“Mmmhmmm.” Liam hums, rolling his eyes as they walk through the empty halls towards the parking lot. “Yeah, _ sure _ ...”

Refreshing brisk night air hits Liam’s face and fills his lungs as they step out into the dark parking lot, and Brett stops suddenly.

“I think I left my keys in the locker room.” he says, catching the door with one hand before it closes behind them.

“You want me to come help you look for them?” Liam pauses to ask.

“No, I’ve got it.” Brett assures him. “‘Night.”

Liam nods and turns towards his car, he’s mid step forward when he feels Brett’s fingers, suddenly clutching the sleeve of his t-shirt, tugging him backwards and turning him around.

Brett leans his head down, and for a second Liam thinks he's leaning in to kiss him, but he stops just as soon as they're eye level.

“You know,” Brett says. “People will still have your back when he isn't here.”

Liam swallows.

Was Brett...really this worried about him?

His heart is still slamming in his chest as Brett's serious eyes stare into him. 

He's about to say thanks when Brett opens his mouth again.

“So ask for help when you need it, jackass.” He says and roughly ruffles Liam's hair before disappearing back into the school.

Liam is left standing in the parking lot blinking at the closed doors, not entirely unsure what just happened, and unable to calm the burning on his cheeks. 

 

*     *     *

 

Scott's day is full to the brim with calls to UC Davis’s Financial Assistance Department, shopping for the cheapest possible dorm supplies he can find, and last but certainly not least, helping assure Lydia that Liam can handle whatever supernatural challenges Beacon Hills throws his way.

In a way, his phone being dead is almost a blessing, allowing him to focus on just one thing at a time till it's finished. Plus it's good training for Liam and his younger pack mates to be able to handle things on their own.

By the time he's back in his room and plugging his phone into it's new charger it's already quite late at night.

He leaves the phone on his dresser to power up while he takes a shower to wash the hours of Target shopping off of him. It doesn’t take very long, but as he's drying off and brushing his teeth, he can't shake the feeling that there's something wrong and is anxious to check his phone again.

_ Just nerves _ . He reassures himself as he strides back over to the dresser.  _ Too many things on the ‘before I go to college’ list. _

Unplugging his now fully-charged phone, he flops down onto his bed to survey the wreckage of being off the grid for a day.

Thirty missed calls:

Mom (4), 2 Voicemail  
Stiles (12), 12 Voicemail  
Liam (8), 2 Voicemail   
Malia Tate (3)  
Theo Raeken (1) 1 Voicemail  
Lydia Martin (2) 1 Voicemail 

Wait,  _ what _ ?

His brow creases at the unlikely name and he sits up.

No, he hadn’t misread it. Theo had called him and left a message.

An icy wave of adrenaline floods his veins. Theo hasn't called him since before their altercation in the library; there's no  _ way _ he's calling unless it's an emergency.

He flicks to his voicemail, mentally steeling himself as he brings the phone to his ear.

It might not be an emergency at all, he argues with himself. It could be an accident. The message looks like it’s nearly ten minutes long, which could easily be a pocket dial. Or maybe it's just that Theo's finally had enough time to think up a scheme to get himself back into Scott’s good graces. 

Either way, Scott readies himself, donning the emotional armor he needs to protect himself with whenever Theo is involved. He's not a naturally suspicious person, and he constantly has to remind himself that Theo’s a supremely messed up person. A duplicitous liar with an antisocial personality disorder. Not someone that he can ever trust to be truthful.

He braces himself for Theo’s smooth voice and words of manipulation, but when the message plays, he doesn’t hear Theo saying anything at all. 

Instead, his ear is assaulted by a brutal round gunfire and Theo’s sharp high pitched cries of pain.

His eyes widen and his stomach turns over as he hears minute after minute of Theo’s desperate screams. He can catch the occasional word:  _ stop _ ,  _ please, stop,  _ but nothing else over the rapid fire of weapons and shattering glass.

If this is some kind of trick or ploy designed by Theo to get Scott to feel bad for him, that it’s working. Scott feels sick, he’s on his feet, grabbing his jacket as he listens, before he realizes that the message is nearly a day old.

This isn’t happening now. It happened hours ago. 

He paces the room, helplessly listening to Theo being murdered.

_ No. _ He thinks.  _ No, maybe he’s still alive... _

He forces himself to keep listening, hoping for some clue as to where this might have happened.

Eventually Theo’s cries stop. The fire continues for a few moments and then silence.

Scott holds his breath, a pain growing in his chest with each quiet second that crawls by before there’s a sound of a car door opening and a man swearing.

“Christ, what are we going to do with this truck? There’s blood everywhere...”

“Who cares, we’ll burn the thing.” a second voice sounds, farther away from the phone.

“Is.. _.it _ alive still?” a third voice.

Equal parts anger and fear surge through Scott’s blood. ‘ _ It _ ’. Like Theo wasn’t a person...

There’s a creaking sound, as if the doors being opened farther, some muffled rummaging and then a shallow, unconscious moan.

Theo’s moan.

Scott’s heart jumps.

“Yeah it is...this one’s...different, I think...”

“Should we burn it with the truck?”

The message ends there, and Scott swears, staring down at the phone in his shaking hands. 

He doesn’t care what Theo did, or who he hurt, or who he tried to turn against him. As stupid as he knows that is, all he heard was a broken crying boy begging for mercy and receiving none.

His mind races back to the other night in the laundromat and that lonely and desperation he’d seen in Theo’s eyes.

What if he really _ had  _ changed from his time underground? 

What if he was trying his best to be better and just didn’t know how or where to start?

How long had Theo been with the Dread Doctors? Ten years? How could he possibly know how to reform himself? Where would he even go to learn how?

Scott had known something was wrong, and he’d just let Theo walk out.

Theo could be dead right now. He could have been trying to change, trying to do better, and he could have been brutally slaughtered.

His crisped bones might be lying, unwanted and unburied in the charred remains of a pickup truck somewhere in Beacon Hills. 

And Scott could have stopped it.

Scott knows Theo isn’t his responsibility, and that he doesn’t owe Theo a second chance, but he doesn’t  _ care _ . He wants to give it to him, more than anything.

And he can’t stand the fact that it might be too late.

“ _ Damn it _ .” Scott swears, bringing his fist down on his dresser as tears well up in his eyes.

He’d wanted to help Theo when he saw him.  _ Why _ hadn’t he let himself?

Before he even knows what he’s doing he’s dialing the number of the only person he thinks might be able to help him. 

If Theo’s alive, she’ll be able to tell.

“Lydia?” he asks before she’s even had a chance to truly answer. “I need your help with something...”

 

*     *     *

The parking lot is empty when Brett reemerges from the school. Liam is long gone and the night air is still and quiet as he pops the lock.

He’d wanted to kiss him.

He’d  _ really _ wanted to kiss him. But he’s still not sure if Liam would punch him if he tried.

Sighing, he drums his fingers on the hood of his car and tilts his head back to stare at the stars.

He should have tried.

Liam’s single now. It would have been the perfect opportunity.

Why had he let it slip through his fingers?

He’s so immersed in his thoughts he doesn’t hear the quiet footsteps sneaking up behind him.

By the time he hears the buzz of the taser, it’s already too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm forcing myself to try to write faster to at least get SOME of my fic ideas finished before the show ends, and this is the product of it. I'm not sure if it's up to my usual work level, but I'm also trying out a new ship so...yeah.
> 
> This chapter was mostly Briam, but there will def be more of both ships in the third chapter. Also I might need to bump it up to 4 chapters based on how long this one ended up being. We'll see.
> 
> In any case, I'd love to hear what people think. Please feel free to drop me a note. Constructive comments are always welcome. :-)


	3. Chapter 3

“That's it.” Scott points out a charred vehicle in the corner of the Beacon Hills lot.

 

The remains of Theo's truck stand out amongst the other wrecked cars, a crisp reflective black in the bleak orange gold light of dawn.

 

Scott had been up most the night, scouring the empty dark streets for signs of Theo. He'd slept only a few short hours in the sheriff’s station while Parish searched for reports of fires or towed utility trucks. That had been Lydia's idea after their search had turned up nothing.

He knows that the fact that Lydia hasn’t been able to lead them to the scene of the crime is a good sign, but as he approaches the chard vehicle with its shattered windows, his heart falls.

_ If they burnt him in there _ ... Scott thinks, his stomach twisting into knots,  _ there might not even be any bones... _

His hand is almost shaky as he wrenches the creaking brittle door open and peers inside.

There's nothing. Just blackened rubble and the horrible lingering chemosignals of Theo's loneliness and terror.

_ He's dead _ . He thinks for the thousandth time.  _ They killed him, and burnt what was left of him up, like some unwanted trash. _

He grips the frame of the door tightly and screws his eyes shut, willing himself to reign his feelings in.

He swallows and turns to Lydia, whose circling the truck observantly, her eyes wide and focused as she places her hands on the warped metal.

“No.” She's says, turning to face him after several long minutes. “No, he didn't die here. I think he's alive...”

Scott's heart beats loudly in his chest, hope filling him for the first time in hours.

 

*     *     *

Liam's phone buzzes from his night stand, startling him from heated dreams in which he has his faces pressed up against a steamy shower wall, a familiar lacrosse player’s hips grinding into him from behind.

He groans loudly, hand flailing blindly around till he finds his phone and brings it under the blankets with him.

The name lighting up his screen is unexpected.

He flips the blanket off himself and answers, squinting in the bright late morning light flooding his bedroom.

“Lorilee?” he groans groggily into the phone.

“Yeah, it's me. Hey, is Brett with you?”

“What?” Liam asks, for a half moment wondering if he’s still dreaming. He sits up and glances at the time on his alarm clock. 11:17am. “No, why?”

“Because he didn't come home last night.”

 

*     *     *

 

“Liam, I'm busy. Let’s talk la-”

“Brett’s missing!” Liam's voice sounds frantic on the other line, “Lorilee doesn't know where he is and his car is still in the high school parking lot. I’m at the school now and I can’t find him.”

“Are there signs of a fight?” Scott asks, turning away to let Lydia continue to grill the scrap yard employee about where the truck was found.

“No, but, there's this scent of...I don't know...shock? Like, really sudden fear...”

“I'll be right there, just stay put.” He says as he pockets the phone and tries to catch Lydia’s eye.

She notices immediately.

“What?” She asks, taking a photo of a record sheet the manager had provided her with.

All of this is _ so much _ harder without Stiles.

“We've got another problem.”

 

*     *     *   
  


Theo wakes to the scraping sound of someone opening the large metal door to the makeshift torture chamber. He can't remember passing out, and he has no idea how much time has passed.

Minutes? Hours? A day?

His limbs feel heavy, like they're made of lead, and his abused muscles feel like they'll twist right off his bones if he tries to move them.

He has to fight the instinct to curl in on himself. It'll only make the pain worse and draw his captors’ attention.

He tries to ignore the rumbling in his stomach and the dryness in his throat and instead focuses on the sounds and scents around him.

Three heartbeats, two strained with effort of carrying the third, who, based on the scrape of sneakers being dragged along the concrete floor, was most likely unconscious.

Looks like he's getting a neighbor.

 

*     *     *

 

The day passes so slowly. Each minute feels as if it’s an hour, and yet, as they turn up dead end after dead end, Scott feels the time slipping away from him at an alarming rate.

They’d found the location the truck was burned, but that yielded nothing. They’d followed Brett’s scent through the school only to lose it when he’d obviously been dragged into a car.

The most disturbing part of the entire thing is that the security cameras on the parking lot had been turned off and recorded nothing - but Scott can’t even begin to think about that right now because every spare second his mind isn’t occupied with an immediate task or trying to calm Liam, he’s thinking about Theo.

The cries of that voicemail ring in his ears in every moment of silence. The image of Theo, with that helpless vulnerable look in his face, playing over and over again in his minds eye.

Theo had protected Liam to his own detriment in the hospital. He'd stayed to fight the ghost riders when he could have left town.

Scott now knows from speaking to the police at the station that Theo'd been living out of his truck for the past several months.

Never once had he stolen something or asked anyone for help.

The signs that Theo had changed were all there.

Why hadn't he seen them sooner?

“This is pointless!” Liam frustrated shout snaps as the last rays of sunset begin to slip away, and deep shadows begin to creep over the town. “We’ve been driving around all day, we’re never going to find him like this!”

It takes Scott a second to realize that Liam’s talking about Brett and not Theo.

Satomi’s entire pack was crawling the town looking for Brett as well. But Scott is the only one looking for Theo.

“You’re right.” Scott agrees, turning to Lydia and catching her eyes. “I think we need to try something else...”   
  


*     *     *

 

The new boy isn't used to torture like Theo is. He gasps and struggles not to scream from the jolts, but his eyes are wide, like he never knew pain could feel  _ this _ bad.

At the end of each shock he whimpers, nearly on the verge of hyperventilating.

Fucking amateur.

“What do you want?” The boy cries, voice trembling like he's on the edge of sobbing.

Schrader grins wickedly in response. The new boy is obviously much more fun for him than Theo had been.

“I want to know where your sister and the rest of your pack is hiding.”

Theo wants to growl in frustration. Schrader hadn't asked  _ him _ anything...

The boy beside him glares up at Schrader.

“ _ Screw you _ .” he spits, and is immediately rewarded with a jab to the ribs.

“Hey, I’ll tell you whatever you want!” Theo quickly interjects, a small burst of energy filling him for the first time in hours. “I don’t care, I can help you...”

“You don’t know anything.” Schrader says, turning on Theo and delivering a sharp jolt.

Theo gasps as the strong volt courses through him. It feels like the dial’s been turned up, and it’s all he can do not to whimper and snivel when Schrader finally pulls it back.

“We know you don’t know anything.” Schrader says again. “You’re nothing but a stray. No family, no pack, no one to miss you once you finally beg me to end your life.”

Theo clenches his teeth, his fingers curling into fists in anger.

He’ll be damned if he begs this  _ clown _ for anything.

“ _ Him _ , on the other hand.” Schrader turns back to the tall boy. “ _ He _ has werewolves crawling all over this town looking for him. He has plenty of secrets to spill.”

Theo tilts his head over to look at the boy again.

He’s still panting and wincing in pain, but from the second Schrader mentioned this boy’s sister there’s been a fire burning in his eyes. A stubbornness that refuses to go out.

“I will  _ die _ before I tell you anything.” he says, vehemently, his heart steady and truthful. “You could cut the flesh off my bones piece by piece and I wouldn’t tell you what her favorite  _ jellybean _ flavor is.”

Theo’s eyes widen. Why the hell would he go giving this man ideas like that?

“So fucking blow me.” the boy adds.

Schrader moves in on him, stares at him for a long hard moment, then turns the voltage up on his baton.

“Is that so?” he asks, and the boy stares at him, unblinking.

“Yes.”

A moment later the room is filled with horrendous screams and blood-curdling cries. The boy’s body wreaths and spasms, the synthetic fabric on his clothes starts to sizzle and hiss, and still Schrader continues.

“IS IT REALLY WORTH IT?!” Schrader’s voice shouts over the miserable cacophony.

When he finally pulls his baton back, steam is rising up from the boy’s body in thin sheets. His cheeks are wet with tears and his trembling body soaked with sweat, but when his eyes finally open, the fire is far from put out.

“She’s...my _...sister _ .” he gasps between heavy breaths. “ _ Of course _ she’s fucking  _ worth it _ .”

Theo closes his eyes and turns his head away.

He wants out of this hellhole.

Anything would be better than listening to this.

  
  


*     *     *

 

“Can you  _ stop _ ?” Lydia’s shrill voice cuts through the quiet room like a knife and Liam jumps.

“What, me?” he asks, unaware that he was doing anything other than waiting patiently for Lydia’s vision to begin.

“ _ Both _ of you.” she says. “I can’t take the two of you leering over me like this! It’s impossible to focus!”

Liam turns his gaze over to his alpha who's standing beside him in the abandoned classroom, his hands tensely gripping the back of an empty chair.

“We’re sorry.” Scott says, and Liam notes the effort with which he releases his grip. “Come on, Liam. Let’s...just go look out the window for a minute or something...”

Liam furrows his brow as he follows Scott over to the window.

It’s just after dusk. There’s a breeze moving the trees in the fading light, that Scott seems to be staring at. His hands are now gripping the windowsill so firmly it groans.

The day had been horrendous. Any lead they'd managed to find quickly went cold. He and Scott had followed the scents of Brett’s abduction to no avail, no one in the town had seen or heard of anyone matching Brett’s description, and Satomi’s pack was still scouring the town looking for him.

On top of everything, Theo’s apparently missing as well. Liam’s pretty sure exactly no one is going to be crying their eyes out about that, but Scott had a hunch that the two things might be connected, so they’d wasted a good few hours trying to track down witnesses to Theo’s truck burning up the night before.

No one in the town had wanted to help them.

There was a sick feeling growing in Liam’s stomach all day. A feeling of responsibility and nervousness. He’d been the last to see Brett. If he’d waited for him in the parking lot, maybe he’d have been able to stop this.

He’d just never seen Brett as someone that needed protecting. He always exuded this confidence and self-assuredness, but in retrospect that seemed stupid. Brett is a beta wolf like him. He isn’t any stronger or more capable than Liam, he’s just as vulnerable as any other werewolf in Beacon Hills.

He can’t stop thinking about how Brett had leaned in close to him and whispered that he’d have his back. Well...more or less. Brett definitely had his own unique way of showing affection. But he’d shown it.

He’s sick with the thought of where Brett might be right now, and he’s used to Scott being there to ground him out, but Scott isn’t acting like himself. His energy has been strange, anxious and jumbled all day.

“Are...” Liam starts carefully, eyeing Scott’s claws now digging into the window sill. “...are you okay?”

Scott’s consciousness seems to reel back to present, and he turns his eyes towards him.

“I’m fine.” Scott assures him, but Liam can hear the edge in his voice still.

This is rattling Scott deeper than he thought.

“Do you...you don’t think that Brett’s dead, do you?” Liam can’t help but asking. “I mean...there was no blood at the scene. They had to have taken him alive...right?”

“I’m sure Brett will be fine.” Scott assures him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “He hasn’t even been missing a day, we’ll find him. We’ll get there in time.”

Liam listens to the steady rhythm of Scott’s heart. He doesn’t catch any tremors or jumps. His alpha is telling the truth...so why is he still so nervous?

There's a sudden gasp from Lydia and they both turn their heads to see the strawberry blond scribbling furiously on the page in front of her.

When they approach her she slaps the pencil down and stares up at Scott intensely.

“I know where they are.” She breathes. “They're going to kill them both..”

 

*     *     *

 

_ True pain is emotional pain. _

Theo's always known that.

As bad as the Dread Doctors’ knife felt cutting into his skin, as terrifying as the mechanical sounds clicking above him had been, neither of them had been what broke him.

He'd learned to manage pain. Hell, he’d practically learned to like it. What drove him over the edge was the isolation. The abandonment. The helplessness.

The dread he'd felt going to bed every night not knowing if they were coming for him. The fact that his parents did nothing to help him. They didn't even believe he was telling the truth about the horrible men in masks.

It was that when he'd crept into Tara's room and quietly begged her to let him sleep next to her that she'd told him that he was too old for that and to stop acting like such a freak.

_ “Just go awa _ y.” she'd hissed, pushing him so roughly he'd fallen backwards onto the floor. “Stop being such a  _ mental case _ all the time!”

She’d gone on to explain, in detail, how he was ruining all of their lives. Of what the things her dipshit junior high school friends said about him. Of how embarrassing the whole thing was for her. Of how she wished he’d just disappear so she could go back to having a normal life.

He’d been too shocked to respond. As tears slid down his face he’d struggled to say anything. 

He knew he was becoming a burden, but he didn’t realize until that moment just how they all felt about him.

“ _ Please, Tara _ ...” his voice shook as he desperately tried to appeal to the girl that he used to spend hours with, playing with plastic dinosaurs on the living room floor. “ _ Please...you have to believe me...I don _ -”

She’d hurled a book at him and screamed for him to go.

There had once been a time when Tara would hold Theo’s hand to help him cross the street. A time when she’d read him stories from her school books and snuck cookies for them to share out of a jar that was on a shelf too high for him to reach.

He’d loved her. Probably more than he loved their parents, who hardly noticed that he existed before he started having “the problems” as they called them.

But the Tara of those days was gone. In her place was this horrible girl that wanted nothing to do with him. All the things they had done together were worth nothing to her. She wanted him gone, and she didn’t care what happened to him.

He  _ hated _ her.

But she didn’t deserve to die.

He knows that now.

If he hadn’t been so thoroughly twisted by the Dread Doctors, maybe he would have known it then.

Theo turns over to look at the boy beside him. He can barely stand anymore, the binds on his wrists are now digging into his skin as his weight sags underneath them, but he still hasn’t uttered a word that would put his sister in danger.

Theo can sense Schrader’s growing frustration as his tactics become more and more aggressive.

In the past, Theo would have really gotten off on this. He’d be paying rapt attention, eager to see the boy break.

_ Everyone has a breaking point.  _ He liked to tell himself.  _ With enough pressure anyone would do things they’d be ashamed of... _

But that’s another thing he knows isn’t true.

There are people out there, people like Scott McCall, that no matter how hard they’re pushed, refuse to break. 

He’d hated Scott for that. Resented him for constantly proving that, in the end, Theo had chosen his path because he was weak.

The way the boy next to him endures hour after hour of abuse, stubbornly refusing give up any information that might jeopardize his sister’s safety is making Theo sick.

It's twisting something in his gut in a way that Shrader’s shock baton never could.

But he  _ doesn't _ want the boy to break.

He doesn't want to see another soul twisted inside out like he was. Even if this boy does have a breaking point, seeing him reach it would far from make Theo happy.

“Maybe we should try something else?” Schrader leers over the boy, whose body is now wracked with sobs. “I think your healing might be slowed enough to withstand a couple of cuts...”

If Theo had anything in his stomach he might have hurled it up.

“ _ Hey _ ,” he cuts in, unable to listen to a minute more of it. 

If the only way to end this was to distract the sadistic fuck then so be it. He's tougher than this boy. Physically tougher at least. 

“Hey,  _ Schrader _ !” he says again. “Yeah, I know who you are...”

 

*     *     *

 

“Damn it, can't this thing go any faster?!” Liam exclaims, slapping the blue metal of the Jeep as it rattles along the highway.

“No.” Scott says tensely. “I'm like pedal to the floor here.”

“We should have taken Lydia's car.” Liam groans, but feels guilty immediately as he noticed the small bead of sweat forming in Scott’s brow.

He shouldn't be adding to Scott's stress right now. He should be managing himself.

But he still hasn't figured out what the hell Scott’s problem is. He seemed confident that Brett would make it out. And Scott wasn't even that close with Brett.

“It's okay.” Lydia's voice sounds reassuringly from the backseat. “We’ll make it...”

But the abandoned facility Lydia had identified is almost an hour outside of Beacon Hills, and he somehow gets the feeling that Lydia's saying that they'll make it not based off any supernatural observations at all, but from wishful thinking.

Liam sits back in his chair, struggling not to show his agitation. 

He shouldn't be angry at Scott for being nervous. He has a right to worry about people. It's not Scott's job to be his rock constantly...but Liam's kind of gotten used to that being the case.

He takes another look at his alpha. He's quiet and focused behind the wheel, but Liam can see the tension in his knuckles as he grips the steering wheel, hear his heart hammering irregularly fast; it's starting to drive him insane.

Liam feels the small simmering of anger in his blood, the beginnings of a growl humming in his throat, and now he's gripping his knees, begging his claws not to grow.

Displacement. That's what one of his therapists had called it. 

It's easier to feel angry at Scott, who's done nothing to deserve it, than to feel the fear that's snaking around him, threatening to swallow him whole.

He needs to be a man. He needs to show Scott he can handle himself. He can't just lose it and snap at people the second he's under pressure.

_ The sun, the moon, and the truth. _ He repeats in his mind, breathing deeply. 

He can do this.

Maybe he doesn't need to understand why Scott is so rattled. Maybe he can be Scott's rock for once.

Maybe.

 

*     *     *

 

Brett is so delirious with pain, it takes minutes before he realizes that the torture has even stopped, much less that it's because the sick fuck has decided to put his attention elsewhere.

When he finally becomes aware enough of his surroundings to realize what's going on he's still confused.

The boy next to him is goading the man. An endless stream of laughs and smug insults interrupted only by long bursts of screams.

_ Why? _

How long has this other boy been here? Had he completely lost it?

With no small effort Brett tilts his head to the side, stealing a glance at him.

There's defiantly nothing sane about the way the boy is acting, taunting the man with petty insults and accusations, but there's something in his eyes that seems like he's still there.

It's several more minutes before Brett realizes what he's doing.

“ _ Leave _ him.” Brett manages to force himself to say. He can't let this stranger keep protecting him.

“You said...” Brett gasps for air and it feels like his lungs are about to give out. “You said he doesn't know anything...”

Schrader pauses for a moment, looking at Brett.

“Oh I will.” Schrader smirks. “When he  _ begs _ me to.”

A small but nearly maniacal laugh starts to spill from the abused boys lips.

“If  _ that’s _ what you’re after...” he says, strain challengingly up at Schrader and spitting at him. “I’m afraid you’re going to be waiting a _ long _ time...”

Brett flinches as the man moves in on the boy, and there's nothing he can do to stop him. He's treated to a solid hour of the same scene played over and over again next to him.

Schrader demands that the boy beg, the boy refuses, then the screams of pain, a brief pause and the whole thing starts over again.

“You’re going to break...” Schrader says, grabbing the boy’s chin and forcing him to look him in the eyes. “You _ know _ you’re going to break...”

Brett’s not sure how much more this boy can take.

“Enough!” Monroe’s voice cuts through the damp echoey chamber.

When Brett turns to face her he sees that she’s not alone. An old man followed by two juniors on the BHHS lacrosse team step in through the shadowy entranceway.

 

*     *     *

 

Monroe can hardly believe the scene she’s walking in on. Schrader has had the werewolf from Satomi’s pack all day and hasn’t managed to get even a scrap of information from him.

Yet he's here getting his chops busted by some stray they picked up off the streets.

“I think that you’ve done a good job of proving that you’re not capable of getting any valuable information from either of them.” She criticizes, as she gives Theo an up-down look. “You aren’t even working on the  _ right one _ .”

“This one was mouthing off-” Schrader begins to defend himself, but she holds up a hand to silence him.

“I don’t care what he was doing, you had a  _ job _ .” 

She eyes the werewolf. He looks as though he’s at least had a bit of a breather compared to the thoroughly abused chimera beside him.

Infuriating.

“Take him down.” she orders and watches Gabe and Nolan work to unchain him.

Nolan’s pale fingers tremble and shake as he fumbles with the zip ties on the werewolf’s wrists, but Gabe moves with a cold certainty that more than makes up for it.

At least someone in this lot has some potential.

She turns to Gerard as Gabe fastens a metal collar around the werewolf’s neck.

“Well, you said you had a use for him?” she asks.

“Oh yes.” Gerard’s gravely voice ripples with a cold glee as he watches Gabe and Nolan struggling to hold up the near dead weight of the werewolf boy. “If your boys here are going to be hunters, than it’s far time they learned how to  _ skin  _ an animal.”

The werewolf boy looks up at her in terror, his eyes flickering from her to Gerard looking for some kind of contradiction.

She might feel worse for him if she thought there was anything  _ human _ in him at all.

Where was this boy when she was trembling in the back of a bus, worried about being  _ eaten _ ?

“Very well.” she agrees, and she feels Nolan’s eyes dart towards her.

He looks pale, like he’s going to vomit, which only reassures her in her decision.

Nolan needed to grow up. If he’s going to falter, it’s better he do it in front of her and Gerard now so they can shoot him down, and not in a fight when they’re counting on him.

“You want something to really be afraid of, Monroe?” a shaky, yet irritatingly nagging voice sounds from behind her and Monroe turns to face the chimera. “It’ll be Scott’s beta when he finds out that you skinned his friend.”

Monroe stares at the boy for a long hard moment with pursed lips.

“I told you this one has a  _ mouth _ .” Schrader cuts in.

“What about this useless one?” Monroe asks, turning to Gerard. “Should we let the boys skin him too, just for the practice?”   
  


“No...I think that’ll be more trouble than it’s worth.” Gerard says, clapping a hand on Gabe’s shoulder as he turns towards the door. “Just let Schrader do away with it as he will.”

Monroe nods.

“Be quick about it.” she says to Schrader and turns toward the door, but then pauses.

The threat Theo had just made to her is fresh in her mind.

She takes a glance at him over her shoulder, catching his eyes one last time.

“But not too quickly.” She says smirking inwardly to herself at the change in expression on the lippy teenagers face. “Do what you will with him, but I'll be back within the hour to make sure there deed has been done.”

 

*     *     *

 

Theo tries not to gulp or show signs of fear as Schrader moves towards him with a new gleam in his eye.

If he's going to die here, then there's no way he's giving this flunky the satisfaction of watching him give in.

“Looks like we get to have some more fun.” Schrader gloats as he retrieves a sharp tool from inside his jacket.

“Oh  _ goodie _ .” Theo snips back, venomously.

 

*     *     *

 

“This is the turn off.” Lydia points urgently over Scott’s shoulder and he turns the wheel sharply without slowing down.

It's a long dirty narrow stretch that looks as if it's almost entirely overgrown. Dirt and rocks kicked up by the Jeeps tires rattle and bounce off its underside, but Scott keeps up the pace.

Roscoe had better not give out on him.

The vehicle groans as it ascends a steep hill, and just as Scott sees the structure come into view there's an ear piercing scream from behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yup there's definitely going to be one more chapter of this at least. It's already started, so hoping to finish it soon. Constructive comments, thoughts, and ideas are always welcome. ^_^


	4. Chapter Four

Gabe flinches as his face is splattered with warm blood.

“And that's the first step.” Gerard voice drones smugly.

Gabes eyes are fixed on the top half of a dead werewolf swinging before him.

She wasn't much older than him. Her brown hair now hangs from her limp head in long wavy curtains, her eyes staring open and lifelessly down at the blood-drenched floor.

He hadn’t signed up for this.

Neutralizing a threat to everyone's safety? Yes. Cutting teenage girls in half? More than he'd bargained for.

But he can’t waiver now. Monroe is standing behind him, her hand resting gently on the weapon at her hip. She won't think anything of using it on him if he falter.

_ Animals _ . He tries to tell himself.  _ They're not really teenagers. They're not like me. They’re not like Nolan. They're just animals... _

But he's beginning to wonder if that isn't true.

The look in the girl's eyes just before she'd been severed, it wasn't the kind of thing you'd see in an animal.

He feels sick. Like there's something living in his stomach, snaking around inside him trying to free itself. If he doesn't pull it together he’ll turn and vomit all over the floor.

“Now it's your turn.” Gerard crows to the struggling werewolf from Devenford.

Much like the dead girl, he's suspended from the ceiling of the tall dark chamber by a long pair of manacles, his feet dangling several inches off the floor. His mouth is taped over with a thick piece of duct tape that’s fraying at the edges from the blood and sweat dripping off his skin.

There's a wheezing sound beside him, and Gabe turns to see Nolan, with a hand clamped tightly over his mouth. Tears are leaking from his eyes, and he looks on the verge of sobs.

Gabe wants to put a hand over his trembling wrist to steady him, but he's worried that Monroe’s eyes are watching too closely.

_ Pull it together, Nolan.  _ He tries to say with his eyes.  _ She’ll kill you if you don't... _

“I’ll do it.” Gabe finds himself volunteering.

He steps forward, shielding Nolan from Gerard's eyes.

“I want to.” He lies, trying to make his voice sound eager, but Gerard puts a hand on his arm and pushes him to the side.

“No...” he says, gleaming cold eyes fixed on Nolan’s wide and terrified ones. “I think we’ll let him do it...”

In a moment Nolan is pushed in front of the suspended werewolf and an oversized broadsword, already soaked in blood, is thrust into his shaking hands.

The length of it is almost as tall as Nolan’s body and he can barely hold the thing up.

He looks up at Brett.

Gabe would like to pretend he didn't know the werewolf’s name, but he does.

“H-he’s...” Nolan starts to stutter and Gabe wants to shout at him to shut his mouth, but it's too late. “He's from Devenford. We...we play lacrosse with him-he-he's helped us practice a few times...”

“He's a monster, Nolan.” Monroe’s voice sounds from behind them. “He'd let worse happen to you...”

“He-he has this nice sister hat comes to all the games...” Nolan goes on and Gabe wishes he could do anything to shut him up. “She...she...”

_ Please, Nolan. _ He begs his frail teammate with his eyes. _ Please just stop talking... _

“She’s...really nice...”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Gerard nod at Monroe.

“NO!” Gabe shouts, moving as the chamber erupts in gunfire

*     *     *

Theo gasps for breath, his body twisting and trembling as Schrader pulls the long cold tool out of him, leaving a bloody hole in it’s wake. There’s a collection of them growing in Theo’s abdomen, all made in a similar fashion. The small blade of the scalpel is coated with something that burns and keeps him healing slow and painfully.

Cold sweat rolls down the back of his neck and he screws his eyes tightly shut, bracing himself for the next jab, but it doesn’t come.

Instead, he feels the sharp edge of the poisoned blade scrape its way, teasingly up the skin of his throat.

“So...what's it take to break a boy like you?” Schrader voice purrs as the blood-drenched scalpel continues to move upward till the tip of it pushes the bottom of his chin.

Theo has to lean his head up to avoid being impaled.

“More time...” he struggles to breathe through the effort it takes keep his head tilted up, “...and creativity than  _ you _ have.”

But it’s not really true anymore. He might have gotten a brief second wind when he’d protected that other boy, but he can feel that vigor draining away with each jab of Schrader’s knife.

“Are you  _ sure _ about that?” the former orderly goads, as if he can read Theo’s mind.

“Positive.” Theo retorts, keeping his eyes closed. But it's a straight up lie.

“Seen it all then, have you?”

There's something in the man’s tone that Theo doesn't like.

The press of the scalpel disappears, but is immediately replaced as Schrader’s sweaty fingers slip under his chin.

“So tough...” Schrader coos mockingly, and Theo feels him run his thumb along his lower lip.

He might bite it if he weren’t so concerned with how the blade is now scraping at his collarbone, threatening to move downwards.

“ _ Look _ at me.” Schrader demands, and Theo doesn't have the strength to resist as his head is turned to face he man. He opens his eyes to meet Schrader’s gaze.

“You know, chimera...” Schrader goes on, “I couldn’t help but notice something as we were playing just now...”

Theo’s body stiffens as he feels the knife travel down over his chest.

_ No... _

Theo can’t stop his eyes from glancing down to follow the blade’s path.

_ Not there. _ He thinks, squeezing his eyes shut as the blade continues to slide closer to his heart.  _ Anywhere else... _

 

*     *     *

 

A rush of adrenaline fills Schrader’s veins when he watches the boy’s eyes dart down to follow the scalpel.

He’s a far cry from the hardened little shit he was three days ago.

“Don’t like being touched  _ there _ ...” Schrader taps the tip of the scalpel against the boy’s heart and is rewarded immediately as his eyes widen and his body lurches. “do you?”

Schrader laughs as the boy struggles against his binds so hard thin trickles of blood start to leak from where the metal shackles are digging into his wrists.

“Why’s that? Somebody hurt you real bad there before?”

“ _ Screw you _ .” the chimera growls back at him, but there’s a desperate tremor in his voice.

Schrader can’t help a grin from spreading across his face.

_ Finally _ , after three days of fruitless frustration, he’s getting somewhere.

It would have been much easier if he’d gotten this boy in Eichen house. There he would have come with a piece of paper detailing everything Schrader could ever want to know about him and his triggers.

But it’s all starting to come together now.

He can easily imagine what this stubborn boy’s sheet of paper would say: Male. Eighteen. No family. Violent. Apathetic. ASPD. PTSD. Abuse victim, probably from a young age. Inflated sense of his own abilities conflicting with low sense of self worth. Suffers flashbacks to physical and emotional trauma...

Schrader would have had fun with him in Eichen House.

He chuckles and allows his eyes to travel down the boy’s heaving chest.

He’s pretty filled out for his age. The sharp curves of his muscles twist and flex impressively as Schrader continues to tease his skin with the edge of the knife.

Schrader has to admit, he's definitely had worse toys to play with.

 

*     *     *

There’s no time to speak, no time to clarify as Lydia watches Scott and Liam dash out of the car and practically trip over one another at the building’s barricaded entrance. She wants to call out to them that there’s probably another way in, but by the time she’s stepping out of the Jeep they’ve already reduced the wooden boards to splinters.

Her scream has shaken them both of them to the core, and she’s watching their backs disappear into the dark structure before she can deliver her final warning:

_ Be careful. More than one person dies here tonight... _

 

*     *     *

 

Nolan’s frozen in fear as he hears Gabe shout and the chamber erupts with gunfire. He can’t move, and he can’t breathe, just stands paralyzed in place as Gabe moves for the gun that Monroe has pointed at him.

_ Dead. _ He thinks as he closes his eyes.  _ I’m dead. _

There’s a rushing in his ears, he doesn’t feel any pain but he hears screams. His own screams, Monroe’s screams, Gabe’s screams.

_ I’m dying. This is what dying must feel like... _

But it doesn’t hurt. He thought being shot to death would have hurt more.

It isn’t till he slips on a slick pool of blood and his body hits the grimy floor that he realizes he’s still alive.

Shaking and hyperventilating, he opens his eyes to see Gabe wincing in pain on the floor only a few feet away from him, clutching a bleeding leg.

“ _ You little bastard _ !” Monroe is screeches, kicking Gabe sharply in his wound and Gabe lets out another sharp howl of pain. “ _ You disloyal little shit _ ..!”

“Calm down.” Gerard’s cold voice echoes through the chamber as the old man pulls Monroe backwards. “There’s a lesson to be learned here...”

“A lesson?!” Monroe shouts back at him, shrugging his hand off her. “I’ve been  _ shot _ !”

For the first time Nolan realizes that Monroe is bleeding from an open wound in her arm.

“Only a small nick, my dear...” Gerard says, a sick knowing glimmer in his eyes. “The first, yes, but certainly not the last you’ll feel before this all is done.”

Monroe looks far from appeased as she reloads her weapon.

“Let’s not be so hasty.” Gerard assures her, “There’s always something to be learned from insubordination. Some people’s true colors can only come out when put under the right amount of pressure. Sometimes people surprise you...”

Gerard’s cruel eyes flicker back to the boy hanging from the ceiling before falling down on Nolan again.

Nolan shrinks back as Gerard crouches down to look him in the eyes.

The old man’s eyes are even more horrible close up. Round irises alive and sharp, cold and reptilian. Nolan feels like he he might unhinge his jaw and swallow him whole like something out of his nightmares.

“Your friend just took a bullet for you, boy...” he breathes, and Nolan finds himself trembling as the man grips him by the collar of his shirt. “Are you going to let him die for you?”

Before Nolan can respond, Gerard is pulling him onto his feet, putting him in front of the Devenford boy once again.

_ No. _ Nolan thinks as the large broadsword is forced into his hands for a second time and he hears the click of Monroe’s gun now trained on Gabe.

“You’ll cleave this monster in half,” Gerard says wickedly. “Or you’ll let your friend over there  _ die _ .”

Monroe’s eyes are locked on Gabe with malice, her fingers burning tightly against the trigger. Gabe looks pale. Not the solid unwavering rock Nolan has always known him to be. For a moment, as Nolan’s eyes meet his, he feels as though he’s staring into the glassy reflection of a mirror.

“What will it be?” Gerard croons. “Your friend that was willing to lay down his own life to protect you? Or this  _ thing _ ?”

Nolan sobs, his hands shaking so hard the metal sword in his hands wobbles like a tower of blocks ready to fall.

He looks up at the shackled boy. His eyes are wide, his chest is heaving rapidly, his breath muffled by the tape on his mouth, but it’s  _ not  _ like looking into a mirror.

Because there’s something else flickering in them. Something warm and vigorous, like he’s steeling himself for the end, but also something soft and sad.

_ Sympathy _ . Nolan realizes.  _ He feels bad for me...for us... _

How could these be the eyes of a monster?

It just can’t be true...

“Nolan...please...?” Gabe croaks, and Nolan jumps. “ _ Please _ ...”

Nolan squeezes his eyes shut. His fingers wrap tightly around the hilt of the sword.

“ _ I’m sorry.. _ .” he whispers.

 

*     *     *

 

The interior of the building is dark, lit only by the spare dim crackling yellow lights. The air is thick, damp, and dusty. Filled with scents of dried blood, moist dirt, and fear.

Liam can pick Brett’s scent out among them. Spiced, stubborn, and fresh.  _ Right Guard _ and mowed grass.

_ Not dead. _ He realizes, and his feet spring faster as his heart leaps in his chest.  _ He’s not dead. _

_ Fuck, Brett, just hold on... _

They can do this. He feels hope fill his body for the first time in hours. Scott’s presence beside him, even if his energy is still knotted and jumbled, reassures him.

There aren’t enough hunters in Beacon Hills to stop him and his alpha together. Their steps are in sync, tearing down the dark hall at equal breakneck speed. They've got this.

A warm assured firmness fills his chest. They come to a split in the hallway and Liam cuts the corner without slowing down. He can see the beginnings of metal stairs leading downward at the end of the corridor, when he suddenly realizes Scott is no longer beside him and stops dead in his tracks.

At the same moment Scott must have also made a similar realization, because when Liam turns to face him, the alpha seems to have came to a halt and is turning around from the opposite path.

_ What the hell? _ Liam thinks, confused for a moment.

Had he misjudged the location the scent was coming from?

“What’re you doing?” Liam snaps impatiently at him. “It’s  _ this  _ way, isn’t it?”

Scott’s eyes meet his, and for a moment he looks not like Liam's alpha at all. Conflict and sadness flicker in his usually measured and grounding warm brown eyes

That’s when it hits Liam.

There’s a second scent drifting forward from the direction Scott had turned to follow. A scent that was distinctly not Brett’s. Cold, soapy and mellow.

_ Theo. _

The twisted worry Scott had been carrying around all day...it wasn’t for Brett, it was for   _ Theo _ .

 

*      *     *

 

Schrader circles the boy’s heart with the blade, reveling in how the previously stubborn and belligerent thing starts to shake and tremble and he can feel his own blood start to rush faster.

There's a hunger growing inside him as he jams the blade between the boy’s ribs just below his heart and watches him squirm. The helpless desperate whine that escapes the once proud creature’s mouth as him twisting the knife harder.

“ _ Stop _ !” the boy finally gasps. “Fuck,  _ stop _ ...”

Schrader laughs.

Finally, he's getting what he needs from this boy.

“You want me to stop?” Schrader goads as he pushes the blade deeper and watches hot tears spill down the boys face and onto his collarbone in splotches. “Then  _ beg me _ to...”  
  


*      *     *

 

Scott watches realization dawn in Liam's eyes.

He hadn't even recognized himself that he'd chosen to follow Theo's scent over Brett's until he felt Liam turn in the other direction, and in the moment it takes for it to sink in his heart falls.

There might not be enough time to save them both. They need to choose, and the choice is obvious.

He can’t prioritize Theo over Liam's friend and ally. It doesn't matter how hard his heart hurts at the the thought of Theo dying broken and alone. It doesn't matter that last image of Theo brushing his hand off as he slipped away in the laundromat is burned into his mind.

It doesn't matter that he can hear Theo’s heart beating like it’s about to break out of his chest upstairs and all he wants to do is go help him.

Brett is _Liam’s_ _friend_. He has to come first.

“No, you’re right.” Scott says, failing miserably to keep himself from sounding devastated as he moves back towards Liam. “Brett’s that way. We need to get him first...”

_ “Please...”  _ Scott flinches as his ears pick up the sound of Theo’s plees. “ _ Please...please stop.. _ .”

He closes his eyes. He feels sick as he moves forward.

But then he feels Liam’s hand on his chest, stopping him.

When his eyes open, he beta is staring at him, with a burning determination.

“No.” he says firmly. “You go save Theo, I’ll get Brett.”

He can hardly believe his ears.

Hope flares up in his chest again for the first time in a day, but he quickly forces himself to snuff it out.

“No, Liam.” he argues quickly, trying to push past Liam's outstretched arm. “We don't know what we're walking into, we can't split up. It's too dangerous-”

But rather than yielding to him, Liam's arm stiffens firmly in place.

“ _ No _ .” Liam says firmly a second time, and there's a determined fire in his eyes. “We heard her scream, we won’t be able to save them both. I can do this on my own.”  
  


*      *     *

 

The words leave Liam’s mouth before he can think not to say them. He’s not even sure if it’s true. He doesn’t know if he  _ can _ do this without Scott, but he knows he has to try.

He’s not sure why Scott is so broken up over Theo and he doesn’t have the time to confront him about his reasons, but from the look in his alpha’s eyes his though process is obvious.

He’s not choosing Brett over Theo. He’s choosing Liam over himself.

And Liam can’t let him keep doing that. Scott always puts everyone's needs before his own. He never takes anything for himself. He always puts what he wants last, and Liam knows it isn’t right.

“Liam-” Scott starts to object, but Liam cuts him off.

“You’re  _ not _ going to be here to keep saving my ass.” he goes on “I have to do this. I  _ can _ do this.”

It sounds so good, he almost believes it himself.

“Please, Scott.” he adds. “Trust me.”

Scott looks at him like he’s about to argue, and Liam’s sure if they had more time he most likely would, but just as the alpha opens his mouth the hall is filled with a gut-wrenching scream of agony.

Theo’s scream.

The color drains from Scott’s face, he quickly grips Liam’s shoulder and re-focuses his eyes on him.

“Be careful.” he orders, firmly.

Liam nods, and Scott is off in a flash, down in the direction of the increasingly frantic begging.

Liam wastes no time, he runs to the metal staircase, a colony of butterflies unleashed in his stomach as he descends them alone.

 

*     *     *

Brett can see it in the fragile boy’s eyes. He’s on the edge of breaking, of losing a mind that he seems that he only has the faintest grip on to begin with.

His wide teary eyes dart from his friend to Brett to the gun held in Monroe's hand.

Brett has never been so close to death. He’s never felt it biting at his heels, ready to swallow him up.

A thousands things flicker in his mind’s eye. The death of his parents, the warmth of the last hug he’d given his sister. What were his last words to her? Did he tell her that he loved her? Would she know that even if he hadn’t?

_ Yes. _ He thinks.  _ She knows. I know she knows... _

He remembers holding her at their parent’s funeral. He remembers saying that he’d always be there for her.

_ Liar. You had no right to promise something like that... _

Would someone else hold her hand after she whispered death prayers for his soul?

He wants to hate the crying boy about to end his life, but at the same time, he _ can’t _ . Brett knows he's only trying to protect someone he cares about.

Brett would kill someone to save Lorilee. He’d die for her and he’d kill for her.

He’d kill for members of his pack.

And he’d kill to protect that stupid messy-haired dipshit that was now captain of the Beacon Hills Cyclones too.

The last friend he’d ever get to see.

He’s flooded with regret about Liam, and all the things he’d never get to tell him.

_ I like you. I respect you. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a year but could never figure out if you wanted that too or would just deck me if I tried... _

Part of him knows that it will be Liam that’s comforting Lorilee when he's gone. He’s not sure why he knows it, but somehow he does.

He fixes his eyes on the struggling boy in front of him, given an impossible choice.

_ I won’t hold this against you... _ Brett thinks as he watches the boy take a deep breath and braces himself for the end. _ I will not carry this grudge into my next life... _

“ _ I’m sorry.. _ .” Nolan whispers, his fingers tightening around the weapon’s hilt.

And then Brett watches in shock as the weapon hits the floor.

“I’m sorry...I...I  _ can’t _ ...”

In the moment that follows, several things happen at once. A roar erupts from the hallway, Nolan dives in front of Gabe, Monroe’s weapon releases a round of fire, and Gerard’s eyes widen.

Wait...

Adrenaline rushed through Brett’s veins as he realizes, he  _ knows _ that roar.

 

*     *     *

 

_ “That’s it, beg. Just like that. Beg for me...” _

Scott feels sick as his ears are assaulted with vicious cruel demands and the sounds of Theo sobbing muffled  _ ‘stop _ ’s.

He races up metal steps, his ears fixated on the rapid heartbeat and hyperventilating sobs.

_ “What happened to tough little chimera, already too broken to break?” _

He comes to an oversized metal door locked with a card reader.

“ _ You're much more fun like this... _ ”

Scott hears Theo growl and snap, but it quickly turns to an agonized whimper.

He slams himself against the door. The metal groans and bends, easily giving way to him before Scott feels himself suddenly stopped.

His eyes widen as he realizes it's lined with Mountain Ash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this chapter. This one has become a bit longer than expected. It'll still probably take 1-2 more chapters to finish, and I'm trying to get it wrapped up so i can focus on a project for the Teen Wolf Big Bang. (Which if anyone is also doing feel free to connect with me on tumblr to chat about https://demonzdust.tumblr.com)
> 
> Thoughts and feedback, specifically on what aspects of the fic are generating interest does help me in my writing, so if you have time to let me know how it's reading I'd truly appreciate it. :-)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took longer than expected, but I hope you enjoy!

Gabe has never hated someone so much in his entire life as he does when he watches the sword fall from Nolan’s hands. 

_ Weak. Pathetic. Traitor. _

He had always stepped in when Nolan was weak. He’d always had Nolan’s back. He had been willing to _ die  _ for him.

But given the choice between saving Gabe and a stranger, Nolan had chosen the stranger.

It’s not the first time Gabe has been been passed up for another. 

When his father left Beacon Hills forever he’d taken Gabe’s older brother with him. Gabe had been young, weak, small. Not like his brother who was well into his teens and could work alongside his dad.

He didn’t blame his father for leaving. He didn’t blame him for not wanting him or for not taking him. He blamed his brother, for choosing to go. 

His brother could have stayed in Beacon Hills and helped Gabe care for their mother, but he chose not to.

Instead Gabe had been left alone with her, and watched her choose bottle after bottle after bottle over him. She’d lose job after job, boyfriend after boyfriend. Till she found one that Gabe couldn’t stand. One that was just as bad as her, and then she’d chosen that man over him as well.

He’d thought him and Nolan were different. He thought that they shared something, a common fear, a common goal, something that was strong enough to hold them together. He thought Nolan wanted to be with him.

He’d thought wrong.

In a cold empty flicker of a moment, Gabe flinches as the sword clatters to the floor, sealing his death sentence.

_ Fuck you, Nolan. Fuck your wide helpless eyes. Fuck your slender wrists and your trembling lips and your stupid fucking freckles...Fuck me for protecting you. I hope you fucking die you... _

But before he can even finish his thought, he’s watching it come to fruition.

Nolan  _ hadn’t _ chosen the other boy, he realizes with horror as his friend dives forward to shield him from the onslaught of gunfire.

He feels tears well up in his eyes as Nolan’s body hits the ground, blood gushing from a dozen holes in his back.

The only person that had ever cared enough to protect him, he’d just wished death on.

And he’s about to get his wish.

 

*     *     *

 

Liam hears their voices before he sees them. He’s halfway down the metal staircase when he recognizes Monroe, Gerard, Nolan,  _ and  _ Gabe.

Four of them. Four of them against just him.

He might have made the wrong choice in telling Scott he could handle this. 

He has no idea what he’s doing.

But through the shouts and sounds of discord he’s coming up on, he can hear the fast strained rhythm of a fifth heartbeat and he  _ knows _ it’s Brett’s.

He charges blindly forward, a roar rips from his lungs and he bursts into the room.

He barely has a moment to take it all in before he has to duck down to avoid being shot, but he sees it all: Weapons on metal tables, blood all over the floor, Monroe shooting at two boys, half a body swinging from a chain next to an old man with sick malicious eyes, and dangling from his wrists with a sweaty piece of duct tape stuck to his lips, Brett.

He leaps forward, but the old man’s reflexes are faster than seems possible, and he has a weapon out from his jacket in a flash. Liam is only just barely able to fit the floor in time before bullets soar over his head and Monroe turns around to face him as well.

Sliding under one of the thick metal tables, he kicks up at it, forcing its bolts out of the floor and flipping it onto it’s side as a second round of fire from Monroe hammers into it.

“Well well, you must be one of  _ Scott’s _ betas...” the old man’s voice croons and Liam hears the sound of a weapon reloading. “Only one so green would willingly charge into a room so out numbered...”

But from the one glance Liam had gotten, it didn’t look like his good friends from the lacrosse team were anywhere near being able to fight him. He doesn’t have time to think about why, and honestly he doesn’t care.

He has one Argent to deal with and that’s enough.

“Trust me,” Liam shouts back, kicking the table again and sending smashing across the room in Monroe’s direction. “I don’t need help tearing apart an old man and the world’s shittiest guidance counselor!”

He’s not sure how to the confident tone found him, but hell, he’ll take it.

“Is that so, young man?” Gerard chuckles as he watches Monroe dodge the table with a shout. “Well, let’s see how you fair against a bullet laced with wolfsbane...”

 

*     *     *

Eventually, Theo stops begging. His head hangs down between his slumped shoulders as his body trembles and his eyes leak hot tears onto the dirty floor.

“ _ It’s okay...you don’t have to stop... _ ” the words slip out of his mouth in barely more than a whisper.

He’s trapped. He can’t move. There’s nothing he can do to stop the sharp object being thrust into him, slowly carving his heart out.

He doesn’t have the energy to fight it anymore, and the deeper it cuts, the more he starts to wonder if he even should. Maybe he just deserves it.

Not from Schrader, someone he’d barely even spoken to, but in general, he knows he deserves it.

Tara, Scott, the countless other kids that he’d assisted the Dread Doctors in experimenting on, they hadn’t deserved what had happened to them. But Theo does. He deserves every bit of pain, every bit of torment. He’d earned it.

He didn’t care how many people had to suffer and die for him to achieve his ends, it’s only fair that no one is here to care when it happens to him.

He deserves to die, tortured and alone. Miserable, insignificant, and unmissed.

“...it’s okay...” he whispers again, his lips quivering with each word as his brain starts to shut down.

He feels cold. He can barely see anymore through the pain and the water in his eyes.

“You don’t have to stop...”

A cold laugh sounds above him, reeling his mind back ever so slightly to where he is.

“Oh, I don’t, do I?”

Theo doesn’t answer and doesn’t look up.

“You look good like this, you know that?” He hears Schrader continue, and feels his grimy finger stroke a line over the crown of his bowed head.

“For a while there you had me worried that you actually  _ were _ unbreakable, but just look at you now...” 

Theo feels his hands move down his neck and over his collar bone. He tries to shrink away as they start to slowly explore his body, but he can barely move.

“You look so  _ perfect _ ...”

The character of Schrader’s touches is shifting, and Theo’s brain is moving too slowly to be able to work out why, but he knows that it’s not to a direction he wants.

He feels a twisting sickness in his stomach as Schrader’s hands slide over him, hotter and more demanding.

A helpless dry wine leaves his throat as he turns his head away.

“Fuck, yes, let me hear you make that sound again...” Schrader whispers, clutching Theo’s throat and tilting his head back.

Schrader is moving slow, but it’s still happening too fast for Theo’s mind to work out what’s going on. It isn’t till he feels Schrader's hot seedy breath on his neck and his grimy hands opening his belt open that it truly dawns on him what the man’s intentions are.

 

*     *     *

“ _ Damn it! _ ” Scott sears as pounds on the unrelenting door.

Each strike sends pain rippling through his arms as the Mountain Ash refuses to yield to him. Theo’s gotten quiet, but the sounds Scott hears are no less horrifying.

“ _ Get off me _ .” Theo’s voice, like it’s trying to growl but coming out as a whimper. “Stop...”

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t want it...”

Theo doesn’t say anything back but Scott can still hear the tormented hammering of his heart and the disgusted but helpless breath like he’s struggling not to sob.

Scott feels sick. The discomfort that had been twisting in his chest all day turns sharply into a stabbing pain and he feels a roar rumbling in the back of his throat, demanding to be let loose, but he bites it back.

If he does that, the man might decide to just finish Theo off before Scott can get to him. He has to get in there, and he has to get in there quietly.

Taking in a deep breath, Scott places his palms flat against the cold metal door and pushes. He can feel the barrier of Mountain Ash burning into his skin, but he presses forward.

He’s been able to cross Mountain Ash once before.

He’ll just have to do it again.

 

*     *     *

“Gabe...” Nolan mumbles weakly as he looks up to see his friend, gripping him by the shoulders, dragging him along the floor and out of the path of the large metal table flying across the room at them.

He feels wet.

Looking back he sees a bright red streak of blood growing across the concrete floor as Gabe continues to drag him.

Then the pain hits him.

He gulps and sobs. Blood bursts from his lips, tears from his eyes, and he feels like his rib cage is collapsing.

“Just hold on.” he can just barely hear Gabe’s voice over the pitched clamour of toppling metal and gunfire.

Hold on? Hold on to what?

His body feels like a punctured bag of water, leaking out all around him. Every breath is becoming harder and more painful to take.

 

*     *     *

It takes all of the strength Gabe has in him to drag himself and Nolan to the farthest wall in basement chamber. His wounded leg burns with each motion, but he keeps his grip on Nolan firm. When he finally reaches the destination he realizes there’s nothing to shield them from the bullets that are now flying across the chamber.

Not that it really matters.

With his back flat against the wall, he pulls Nolan’s body tightly to his chest, and wraps his arms around him as much as he can. His hand shielding the back of his head.

“Gabe...” Nolan sobs his name over and over again into his neck. “Gabe I’m sorry...I..I couldn’t...”

“I know.” Gabe mutters and buries his face into Nolan’s hair. “I know you couldn’t.”

He holds him like that, each moment growing warmer as Nolan’s hot blood spills onto him.

“Don’t be sorry.” he says finally, as he feels Nolan’s sobs grow quieter. “Please just...don’t be sorry...”

 

*     *     *

 

Not even a week ago, all Theo had wanted was for someone to touch him. To feel the warm sensation of someone’s skin against his own. To have someone, anyone he’d thought, break him from the cold isolation of spending night after lonely night, day after empty day, completely and entirely devoid of company.

It isn’t till he feels Schrader's clammy invasive hands pawing at him, that he begins to realize that it wasn’t just  _ anyone’s _ touch he’d been craving.

There had been a person. One person. Someone that had never once tried to use him or hurt him. Someone whose touch was so grounding and absolving that Theo’s whole body ached when he thought of it.

Someone he’d done serious wrong to, and yet still managed to look at him like there was something in him worth saving. Probably only person that had truly ever cared about him. Likely the only person that ever  _ could _ find it in themselves to ever care about him again...

“Scott...” he mutters, so quietly not even Schrader, whose so close to him his gross lusty breath is beating down on his throat, could hear him.

He closes his eyes tightly, and tries to ignore the hands groping down his spine into his jeans.

Maybe he deserved this too. 

He sure as hell didn’t deserve Scott.

A new cluster of tears start to gather at the corner of his closed eyes as he resolves himself to what he’s powerless to stop.

At least it probably wouldn’t hurt as much as the knife...

 

*     *     *

“ _ Scott _ ...”

It’s low and faint, barely more than a mumble, but Scott hears his name called clear as day.

Renewed strength surges through his body, his muscles twitch with effort, The Mountain Ash feels as though it’s flaying the skin off his arms but still he presses forward.

There’s a groan as the metal begins to bend, and with a furious roar Scott rips through the barrier.

The door crashes to the floor and Scott finally sees them.

The orderly from Eichen House turns to face him, his belt is hanging open and his fly is down, but the lust in his eyes is quickly receding into fear. Behind him, Theo’s body is trembling, his head bowed in submission, his broken form kept upright only by plastic binding his wrists to the wire-linked wall.

Rage flares through Scott and his eyes flash red as they take in the sight of Theo’s chest, half carved open around his heart and the unbuckled belt on his hips.

_ No one deserves this. _

He hadn’t been a second too soon.

The orderly runs but Scott ignores him, moving right past his fleeing body to Theo.  
  


*     *     *

Theo hears the sound of the door being smashed open and feels Schrader’s invasive hands immediately disappear, but he keeps his eyes closed tightly shut.

He’s done hoping for a way out of this. Even if the perfect opportunity was thrown before him, he was in no shape to try to take it now.

He flinches, ready to jerk his head away as he feels someone’s hand cup his chin, but then hesitates.

The touch is different.

Warm, but not heated. Strong. but still gentle. A touch that gave everything and took nothing. 

He doesn’t dare trust his own senses.

“Hey,” a familiar voice whispers gently to him, and Theo feels his heart jump into a hopeful rhythm in spite of himself. “Theo, it’s me...”

It can’t be.

How could it possibly be?

He doesn’t want to open his eyes to find that he’s imagined this. He doesn’t want to find out it’s nothing more than a cruel pain-inspired delusion. But he forces himself to.

Scott is looking back at him. His dark brown eyes are laced with concern, as he studies Theo’s face.

“ _ Sc _ -” he starts, still disbelieving his own senses, but then gasps as the breath he takes causes a sharp stroke of pain to rivet up his chest.

“It’s okay.” Scott whispers, reaching for the stinging binds on his wrists. “Don’t try to talk. I’m going to get you down, alright?”

Theo stumbles forwards the second his wrists are free but Scott’s arm catches him before he hits the floor.

“I’ve got you.” Scott whispers. 

Theo’s fingers curl around Scott’s arm. He opens his mouth to thank him. For being here,  for finding him, for not letting him hit the floor. But none of that comes out.

All that leaves his Scott’s name and a set of broken sobs.

 

*     *     *

 

Brett had thought that being in the room with that idiot with the shock baton had been torture, but watching the scene unfold before him was true agony.

The brief flickers of hope that had flamed up inside him upon hearing Liam’s roar were quickly doused when he realized his friend was here by himself.

He could have died alone. But he can’t bring himself to let Liam die for him.

_ Idiot.  _ Brett wants to yell at him.  _ Why would you come here? What were you thinking? _

Liam is outgunned and outnumbered. He doesn’t have the skills or the experience to contend with Gerard Argent and his flunkies.

And yet...

Brett’s eyes widen as he watches Liam move faster and with more precision than he’d ever known him capable of. He’s angry and a bit sloppy, as he often is, but he’s not stupid.

He uses the the tables in the room for cover, slides under them, rips them out from the floor as easily as a child might tear grass from the ground, turns them on their side, throws them, pushes them, and uses them as shields to close the distance between himself and Gerard.

He’s nearly on top of him, barely a yard and a half away when he finally makes a mistake. Seeing his target so close, Liam springs. He doesn’t check his blind spot. Doesn’t see that Monroe had also used the tables, not for cover from gunfire, but from sight.

Brett tries to shout, but the damn duct tape is still plastered to his mouth and all he gets out is a muffled grunt before Liam is howling in pain, clutching his knee in mid leap and crashing to the ground.

“What a pity...” Gerard’s croons victoriously. “You had so much fight, for a moment there I thought this was going to be more interesting...”

Brett twists and wriggles in his binds his binds, his hand desperately trying to find a grip on the chains above him. Maybe if he could pull himself up...

“I guess it’s true what they say,” Gerard goes on, taking a step backwards and training his gun with perfect aim to bury a bullet in Liam’s skill. “The beta’s of a True Alpha  _ are _ stronger...”

A smug smile creeps across his lips.

“But still no smarter than an  _ animal _ .”

Gerard never gets to pull the trigger.

Because, unbeknownst to him, he’d put himself within the striking distance of another _animal._ One who thanks to the help of some nameless boy that had selflessly drawn shock after shock from their captor, had given him a long enough reprieve from to regain his strength.

Brett’s foot slams into the back of Gerard’s head, sending his aged form reeling to the side. There’s a loud sickening crack as his skull collides with the edge of a toppled metal table, and his limp body falls to the floor.

Brett’s chest heaves from the effort, and he watches as blood begins to pool on the concrete floor around the old man’s head, joining the rest of the disgusting mess on the floor.

On the other side of the room, there’s a flicker of movement, and Brett realizes that Monroe has fled.

 

*     *     *

Scott’s eyes widen as Theo’s breaks into a quiet set of sobs. He was half expecting Theo to pull away. To push his concerned hands off as he had in the laundromat only a few weeks earlier. But when he hears Theo call his name, feels his weak fingers curl around his arm, he realizes that he’s failed himself.

He can’t stop himself from pulling Theo against his chest and wrapping his arms tightly around him. He can’t stop himself from caring. 

He’s frozen in place for a moment as Theo buries his face into his chest and heaves a wet sob into his shirt.

“ _ Scott. _ ..” Theo whispers as his body shudders against him. “ _ Scott. _ ..”

His hand finds it’s way to the back of Theo’s head, his fingers reach into his grimey wet hair, and he feels the memories he’s been struggling for months to keep locked away break into his mind’s eye like spear rips into its victim. 

Theo of fourth grade. Pale-faced and scared. Confused. Laughed at by other kids for reasons that Scott never understood. Tears streaming down his face as he struggled to breathe. 

_ “No...no...don’t c-huh-call an ambulance.” _ he’d begged nonsensically, or so it had seemed at the time.  _ “Pl-please...du...don’t take me to the doctor. I h-uh-hate doctors...” _

It has a different meaning to Scott now.

_ “Please...please...” _

Their PE coach hadn’t listened. He’d done what any adult would do and called an ambulance immediately, but he let Scott follow them to the nurse’s office and wait for it to arrive.

“ _ It’ll be okay.. _ .” Scott had said, moving closer to him. _ “It won’t be bad, I’ve done it before.” _

He’d described step by step what would happen at the hospital, and Theo had kept his eyes on him, followed every word.

_ “...and your parents will meet you there. And-” _

“ _ No they won’t _ .” Theo’s interrupted with a gasp, renewed tears falling down his round childish face.  _ “They duh..don’t give a fuck...”  _

He’d never heard Theo swear like that before, but he didn’t judge him for it.

“They do.” Scott had tried to assure him. “They’re probably just going through a hard time...”

It’s what his mom had told him about his father, who had been going through a hard time for as long as Scott could remember.

_ “They really don’t, Scott.” _

Scott didn’t argue with him, he’d just slipped his hand into Theo’s and squeezed it.

_ “I care.” _ he said, and he’d meant it.

He’s not sure what Theo had been through before that day in the nurse’s office. He’s not even sure what Theo’d been through after that. 

How much had the Dread Doctor’s shaped him into the person that killed him in the library? How much of that had been just Theo?

But more importantly, how much  _ could  _ Theo really ever change?

He wants to believe that he can, and for the first time in a long time, he allows himself to. He buries his face down into Theo’s damp hair and breathes in his anxious tormented scents.

“It’s okay.” he whispers, feeling every shudder of Theo’s body as if it were his own. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

It would have to be. He’d have to find a way.

 

*     *     *

“ _ Fuck! _ ” Liam swears as he tries to dig the bullet from his knee but to no avail.

He forces himself up, leaning all of his weight onto the leg that hadn’t been shot, and looks up at Brett. His chest is heaving from the effort of what he did to Gerard, but he seems untouched from the stray bullets.

“ _ Mmmmhmmrghhh _ !” He struggled to convey something to Liam but the duct tape on his mouth refused to let him speak.

“What?” Liam winced, taking a step forward and searching for a way to get Brett down.

There’s so much blood in the room he can hardly breathe from the overwhelming scent.

“ _ Hmmgrhh! _ ” Brett urgently again and jerked his head towards the corner of the room.

That’s when Liam sees Gabe, dragging himself across the floor, wrapping his fingers around the hilt of one of the weapons that had been dropped during the scuffle.

Ignoring the searing pain in his knee he rushes forward.

_ Bang. _

A bullet sinks into Liam’s bicep, but it doesn’t slow him.

Gabe’s shaking fingers pull the trigger a second time.

_ Bang. _

A hot animalistic rage spreads from the wounds plaguing Liam’s body and he sees red.

_ Bang. _

He can’t even feel the pain anymore, he’s so angry.

His hand wraps around Gabe’s weapon and crushes the metal like an empty soda can.

“ _ You _ -” Liam roars, pulling his claws back to slice down through Gabe’s face.

It’s his own fault. He deserves what’s coming to him. In his fury, Gabe isn’t just responsible for all of the fear and anxiety over the past twenty-four hours, he’s responsible for every wrong thing that has ever happened to Liam in his entire life.

Gabe’s body shrinks away on the floor, he brings his arms up to cover his face but Liam wrenches them away so he has a clear swipe.

He’s going to shred his stupid fucking face in half.

Gabe’s terrified eyes stare at Liam’s claws, and a thought strikes Liam.

What would Scott say?

Is he really going to take someone’s life the second he’s out of Scott’s sight?

Is that what Scott deserves for all of the time he’d spent with Liam, talking his edges off, teaching him, helping him?

But his hand is already swinging downward, and he feels incapable of stopping it. The rage inside him has a life of it’s own, and it wants blood.

_ Find your anchor. _

Liam closes his eyes. Scott isn’t here. His warm assuring presence is too far to keep him reeled in. He can’t do it...

_ Scott’s his own anchor. _

He wants to be like that. Like Scott. Someone who anchors and saves others, not someone that constantly needs to be anchored and saved.

It’s too late. He can’t retract his claws.

But he manages to curl them into a fist.

His blow smashes into Gabe’s face, knocking his head to the side. Blood bursts from his mouth and he falls to the floor.

Shaking, Liam takes in several deep breaths. He swallows down gulp after thick gulp of hot air, slowly feeling the rage drain out of his body.

When he can finally feel his heartbeat slowing, he looks down at Gabe’s body. He’s unconscious, but not dead.

It’s not great, Liam knows that, but it’s not as bad as it could be.

His eyes follow a streak of blood leading from Gabe to another boy, bleeding out on the floor.

He tunes his ears toward Nolan’s form and listens for a heartbeat.

It’s only just barely there.

_ What the hell happened here?  _ Liam wonders, but doesn’t have the time to puzzle out. 

Brett is still dangling from the ceiling, these two  _ idiots _ are bleeding to death, and he’s not even sure what Scott had run into or if Scott is really okay. 

His concern for Theo is troubling enough on it’s own. What if Theo was in on this and the whole thing is another ruse to get Scott alone?

Yes, Theo helped him in the hospital, but could he really be trusted alone with Scott?

Liam’s not sure.

Wincing and wheezing from the pain, he searches the room for a way to let Brett down.

In the very back of his mind, Liam had indulged in imagining himself heroically holding Brett up and letting his friend lean against him as he proudly pulled him up the stairs and met his alpha. But when he finally finds the crank to lower Brett the bullets are burning so furiously inside him that he fumbles and loses control of it. 

Brett’s body crashes with a painful-sounded  _ thud _ . 

_ Smooth. _ He can’t help but think embarrassedly as he hobbles towards his friend. _ Yeah I’m a real master at this whole rescuing thing... _

Even still, as he approaches he expects to find relief and thankfulness in Brett’s eyes.

But he’s sorely disappointed.

The moment his hands are free Brett rips the disgusting sweaty piece of duct tape from his mouth and shouts at him.

“ _ Dumbass _ , she shot you with  _ wolfsbane _ and you’re letting her get away!” 

Wolfbane. Liam’s cloudy mind is only just barely able to process.

That makes sense. What with the burning and the pain, and the blurring in his vision and...

Liam’s knees buckle and his body tumbles forward.

It briefly registers in his mind as he feels himself being caught in Brett’s arms and then scoped up off his legs like a child that Monroe must be long gone by now. Along with the only cure.

 

*     *     *

“Come on.” Scott says, pulling Theo’s arm around his neck to support his weight as he pulled him towards the door.

He’d like to let Theo stay vulnerable like this for as long as he needs to. He’d like to let himself soak in his long suppressed feelings and explore what they meant.

But he can’t. Liam is still out there, and so is Brett.

Still, his heart leaps happily when Theo willingly gives his arm over and leans his face into his collar bone.

He spies Theo’s light red hoodie and jacket sitting in a lumpy pile on a table next to horrid looking tools and quickly snatches it up.

He’s about to pull it around Theo’s shoulders and cover his bleeding chest when the air is hit with an ear-piercing scream.

_ Lydia.  _

 

*     *     *

Brett is scooping up his rescuer into his arms when he hears it. A scream the likes of which he’d heard before but certainly had heard of.

He scrambles up the stairs. With Liam’s weight and his wounds every step is excruciating agony, but he pushes forward. They’re so close to getting out of here, he’s not going to give up on Liam’s cure even if it’s a long shot that he’d be able to catch up.

When he reaches the top he sees shocked to see Scott with the other boy from the torture chamber clinging to him.

Scott’s eyes immediately fall on Liam, who's bleeding moaning half consciously in Brett’s arms, and widen in horror.

“He’s been shot with wolfsbane!” Brett wastes no time in saying as they continue to move up the corridor. “And Monroe’s getting away with the gun!”

But nearly just as soon as he says it they turn the corner to see Lydia standing over Monroe’s unconscious form. Her gun laying on the dirty floor several inches from her outstretched hand.

“ _ Bitch _ .” Lydia breathes, turning to face the boys. “Come on! I called an ambulance and the police, let’s get out of here!” 

Scott picks the gun up off the floor as Brett stumbles forward to the blue Jeep waiting for them just outside.

The cool night air is fresh and welcome in his lungs, even if he’s still straining himself with the effort of carrying Liam bridal style to the vehicle.

“Brett...” Liam’s heavy voice pants urgently, his blood-soaked fingers slipping down his cheek to get his attention as he’s hauled into the back seat. “Brett...”

“What?” Brett asks, looking him concernedly in the eyes as he pulls Liam into his lap to make room for Lydia. “What is it?”

Liam’s fingers move across Brett’s lips, and even in the dire situation that they aren’t quite out of yet Brett wants to draw them into his mouth and suck on them.

“I’m saving you.” Liam says deliriously, his eyes slightly unfocused as Brett’s arms cradle him like a child.

“Yes.” Brett says, his lip unable to stop itself from curling into a sarcastic smirk. “Yes you are.”

“How’s he doing?” Scott asks as he buckles the other boy into the front passenger’s seat.

“He’s doing alright.” Brett says as Liam continues to trace bloody shapes into his cheek with a dopey look on his face “But let’s get to the hospital  _ fast _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that one took a while, but thank you for sticking with me and I hope you enjoyed this one! There is still one more chapter coming to wrap up loose ends (aaaand there might be some smut if I can work it in but shhhhh I make no promises!). Gabe and Nolan’s fate will be made clear though I won’t say how yet.
> 
> As always I really appreciate constructive comments - it helps me with both my plotting and my writing to know what aspects people are enjoying or eager to see resolved.
> 
> ALSO a few small plugs:
> 
> I’m organizing a sceo week (January 22 - 28) and I would REALLY love it if people wrote some fic for it. If you have other skills or ideas the participation requirements are really low Basically anything relating to sceo would be much appreciated. You can see all the info here: https://sceoweek2018.tumblr.com/about
> 
> You can always talk to me on my personal tumblr about sceo week, writing, my fics, ships, etc (I also tak requests but as I'm in the middle of some long works in progress it would be a while before I start something new): http://demonzdust.tumblr.com/ask
> 
> Aaaaand also I have become a moderator for the Teen Wolf Discord in recent months if anyone is looking for a place to enthuse and talk about fic writing: https://discord.gg/Qssg24N


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**  
  


_ “Could I...could I sleep next to you?” _

_ Theo’s small white fingers clutch his pillow tightly, his wide eyes seeking Scott’s with a painful embarrassed shame. _

_ “Sure.” Scott says, sliding over on his bed to make room for his guest. _

_ The idea isn’t that strange, he and Stiles used to share a bed during sleepovers all the time, and they’d really only stopped doing that as much earlier that year. _

_ But when Theo crawls in next to Scott and slips beneath the covers, Scott knows that this is different. Theo’s scent is soft and delicate, not like Stiles’ at all. It’s unfamiliar and exciting. _

_ Theo’s parents had dropped him off with a sleeping bag, and Scott’s wasn’t sure why he didn’t seem to want to use it, but he also didn’t mind. _

_ “Is this weird?” Theo asks, laying his head down on his pillow, facing Scott. _

_ “Wh-what, no...” Scott answers quickly, though truth be told, he’s not sure if it is. _

_ Theo is so close, he can feel his breath tickling his face. It’s sweet and minty, just like the toothpaste they’d brushed their teeth with only a few moments ago. Scott can see cute curve in his lips, and up close, they look soft. _

_ His mind starts to float back to earlier conversations he’d had with Stiles throughout the week. For the past several years Stiles had been going on and on and on about how, when he kisses Lydia for the first time he wants to slip his tongue in her mouth, just like on tv. It sounded really gross the way he said it, but as Scott’s looking at the shape of Theo’s mouth... _

_ He’s suddenly aware that the door to the hallway is still open a crack, and he feels a strong desire to close it. _

_ His mother wouldn’t think anything of seeing him in bed next to Stiles. She wouldn’t be mad if she saw him in bed with Theo...but it felt different, and he wanted it closed. _

_ He lifted himself up off the bed, tread lightly across the room, closed the door quietly, and the pale yellow light from the hall disappeared entirely. _

_ When he returned, Theo’s body was tense beside him. Strained, like he was trying to keep himself from hyperventilating. _

_ “Hey...” Scott whispered, reaching for his friend’s arm lightly. “Are you okay?” _

_ “Y-yeah...” _

_ But Scott can tell, he’s scared. _

_ “Are you afraid of the dark?” he asks, in a concerned whisper. _

_ “No...no it’s not that...” _

_ There’s a clicking sound as the radiator turned on and Theo gasps, low and terrified, his body turns ridged and crumples in on itself. _

_ Scott finds himself staring at the top of Theo’s bowed head as his small body shakes with panicked tremors. _

_ “Hey...” he pulls Theo closer, not sure what was wrong. “It’s just the heat coming on...” _

_ Theo lets out a slightly choked sound, and for a moment Scott thinks he might break into an asthma attack, but then he felt Theo’s arms wrap tightly around his waist. He curls his body against Scott’s, clings to him as if invisible hands were threatening to reach out of the dark and steal him away. _

_ He could feel Theo’s heart beating against his chest, his breath on his neck. _

_ He wants to ask what’s wrong, find out why Theo is so scared, but he knows sometimes when he asks Stiles what’s bothering him, he only makes it worse. _

_ “It’s okay...” he whispers, his arms wrapped around Theo’s back. _

_ “I’m sorry...” Theo whispers but doesn’t let go. _

_ “Don’t be.” _

_ “I’m too old to be scared...” _

_ “Mom says even grown ups still get scared.” _

_ “My Mom doesn’t.” _

_ “Well,” Scott swallows, “I get scared sometimes.” _

_“You do?”_  

_ “Yeah. Plenty of times.” _

_ He can feel Theo’s body relax slightly, but he still doesn’t let go. _

_ Minutes pass, Theo’s breath evens out, his body starts to meld against Scott’s and he drifts off into sleep. _

_ Scott finds it hard to follow suit. Something about Theo’s body pressed against his own, makes it difficult. The rise and fall of his chest, the scent of his hair, feels right. _

_ And his mind keeps falling back to more conversations with Stiles. Talk about girls and bases and it becomes harder and harder to sleep. _

_ Eventually, though, his eyes fall shut, and he drifts into warm and pleasant dreams. _

_ In the dead of night, he wakes it’s to the sound of breaking glass and Theo gasping beside him. _

_ Scott knows what the sound is. A bottle, slipped from a careless hand and shattering to the floor. _

_ He and Theo had shifted in their sleep. Theo’s back is now to him, but Scott can tell he’s awake as his parent’s raised voiced echo up the stairs. _

_ “Scott has a guest!” he can hear his mother, enraged, and his fathers booming but illegible response. _

_ Scott’s grip tightens on Theo’s waist. If the other boy weren’t here he might creep to the top of the stairs and listen. Make sure his Mom is okay. _

_ But tonight he has to protect his friend. _

_ “It’s fine.” Scott whispers behind Theo’s ear. “He won’t come in here, I promise.” _

_ “I’m okay.” Theo whispers back, and Scott is surprised that his voice doesn’t sound as scared as Scott thought he might. _

_ “Do they fight like that a lot?” Theo asks, and Scott can’t help but nod. _

_ “Do your parents fight like that?” _

_ “They argue sometimes.” Theo admits. “Mostly about me...they never break anything.” _

_ Embarrassment creeps through Scott’s body. Of course they didn’t. That wasn’t a normal thing parents did. Just his dad. _

_ The voices gets louder and Scott’s arm stiffens, but Theo doesn’t seem to mind. _

_ He slips his hand over Scott’s, understandingly. Brushes his thumb over the back of Scott’s knuckles. _

_ Scott feels himself relax, in spite of the shouts and sound of slamming doors. He presses his cheek to the back of Theo’s neck, breathes in his pleasant scent, and they drift back to sleep together. _

 

*     *     *

 

Fluorescent lights crackle above him. The air is stagnant and sterile. There’s a rushing in his ears, muffling the sounds around him, and something burned in his veins. 

“Cover his mouth!” He hears someone say, right before something warm covers his lips.

But even in his half conscious state, Liam recognizes the hand of his alpha.

His heart slows down in his chest. The pain leaves his body. The rushing dies down.

Liam blinks and the somewhat familiar sight of the Beacon Hills memorial hospital emergency room comes into focus.

“Hey.” Scott smiles down at him as he removes his hand. “You with us?”

“Scott, I think I messed up.” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth. “Gabe...I might have killed him...”

“You didn’t.” Scott assures him. “He’s conscious and they’re treating his bullet wounds.”

“And Brett...”

“‘Sup.” A smug voice drawls from a chair beside him.

Liam quickly turns his head.

Brett looks like hell. He’s wiping dried blood and grime off his face with a wet nap, his hair sticky and gross, but he seems to be in decent health.

He opens his mouth, like he’s about to add something else, undoubtedly snarky, when Scott cuts in again.

“We’re all here. We made it.” he assures him.

Liam takes a look around the room. Lydia’s standing by the opening in the dark blue curtains that had been drawn around them, keeping watch. Melissa is cleaning the rest of the wolfsbane from his cuts, and even Theo is tucked into a corner, arms folded, looking worse than Brett but still alive.

“What about Nolan?”

Scott grimaces.

“He’s being operated on now.” Melissa says gravely, putting an unnecessary bandage on one of Liam’s wounds.

 

*     *     *

 

It doesn’t take long after the wolfsbane is neutralized for Liam to spring back. Scott feels a relieved sigh leave his lips as the final wounds seal up and heal over.

They’re in the parking lot, piling back into the Jeep when Scott’s phone buzzes ominously in his pocket with a text from his mother.

_ Scott, honey, did you want to know about the other boy’s condition? _

Scott quickly texts back that he does.

He knows Nolan from the lacrosse team. He’s a scared, easily affected kid. He’d always acted shifty and skittish around Scott, which Scott had always assumed was due to Nolan being aware of what he is.

It always hurt. He tried not to let it show, but it did. That fear, fear of the monster inside him. It never didn’t sting.

From what Brett described, he’d been right about the source of Nolan’s uneasiness. Knowledge of what Scott is had spurred the confused and frightened boy to mix with people that would use those weakness to their advantage.

Scott glances at Theo, whose slipping into the front passenger's seat, flinching as his chimera body still works it’s slower healing magic.

Were Monroe and the Dread Doctors one in the same in that regard?

Brett had explained how Nolan refused to land the killing blow. How he was terrified, but still couldn’t be forced to kill. That put him a notch above Theo, who’d not only killed, but killed his own flesh and blood.

_ But he was so much younger. You don’t know what they did to him... _

He wants to know. He wants to know so badly.

Melissa’s text lights up in his hand and draws back his attention.

_ There was only so much the surgeons could do. He’s had a blood transfusion but the damage from the bullets was severe. He’s in recovery, but we doubt he’ll make it through the night. _

_ Honey, I’m sorry. _

Scott swallows. His hand on the door handle of the Jeep.

He tilts his head black and stares up at the stars in thought.

He wishes he knew the right thing to do. The longer he is an alpha, the more difficult and confusing the right path becomes. Each choice seeming to offer more risk than the last.

His eyes catch the glimmer of a seatbelt as Theo buckles himself in the front seat. There’s still a dried flecks of caked blood in his hair. His skin is still bruised and discolored, even if his major wounds have healed.

Scott can’t get the image of him, dangling half dressed and chest carved open from that chain link wall, out of his mind’s eye.

He recalls the tug in his chest the night in the laundromat. The one he had ignored. The one he’d regretted ignoring for the past forty-eight hours.

He sighs.

“I’ll be right back, guys.”

 

*     *     *

 

Theo shifts awkwardly in his seat, waiting for Scott to return.    
  
Liam and his friend are whispering in the back seat and Theo catches glimpses of conversation about how the tall boy was taken as well as details of their escape.

Although he can hear everything around him, he finds it difficult to focus. Everything feels surreal and slightly muffled, like he's in a dream. It could be from hunger and exhaustion, but Theo's felt this way enough times in his life to know that it isn't really the reason.   
  
Shell shock is something that he is now intimately familiar with. So familiar, he knows how to hide that he's experiencing it from others. He can respond when spoken to, he's aware of the things that happen around him, he just feels slow. Detached and vulnerable at the same time. He knows it will fade, but the feeling is agony.

His heart starts ticking nervously the second Scott disappears through the hospital doors and out of sight.    
__  
_ Where is he going? _ __  
__  
_ Is he coming back? _ __  
__  
_ How long will he be gone? _ __  
__  
It’s easier to feel calm when Scott was nearby. He may not be Theo's alpha, but Theo still knows he's safe with him. Always has been.   
  
His toes curl nervously on the floor of the Jeep. They hadn't been able to find his shoes on the way out from the power plant, and he's been barefoot for the last hour.   
  
_ Stop _ . Theo's rational mind starts to kick in when he realizes he's obsessing, staring at the hospital doors waiting for Scott's return.  _ Stop thinking like that. You can't fixate on him like this. You won't be around him for much longer. The sooner he gets back the sooner you’ll be on your own again. Stop. _ __  
  
He tears his eyes away from the door and stares down at his hands. But he can’t stop himself from silently wishing that Scott would return faster.

 

*     *     *

 

Nolan Holloway’s room is dark and quiet. The dim glow and low beep of the heart monitor provide the only light and sound in the otherwise still room.

Gabe is asleep in a wheelchair, his fingers interlaced with Nolan’s.

Scott makes no sound as he creeps in.

He takes a long look at Nolan. His pale face peppered with freckles, the loose bangs falling over his eyes and tickling his pointed nose.

He reaches for Nolan’s free arm, and draws thin bands of pain from him.

Resolving himself to his decision and praying that it’s the right one for all involved, he lets his teeth slip down, brings the pale arm to his lips, and bites softly into his skin.

Nolan’s body is too sedated to react, and Scott gently replaces the limb arm on the bed.

Survival would be in Nolan’s hands now. He’ll be back in the morning to see if it takes.

  
  


*     *     *

 

The ride to Brett’s house doesn’t take long. Lydia had called her mother to drive her home from the hospital, which left the four physically and emotionally exhausted boys to be driven to their respective homes.

Liam fidgets slightly in the dark.

He keeps taking glances at Brett, watching the lights and shadows dance along the handsome contours of his features as they drive beneath streetlamps and trees. He has a very vague memory of slipping his fingers all over Brett’s face, and possibly down his neck on the ride to the hospital.

He really hopes those are hallucinations, and not things that actually happened, because if they were, he’s sure he’ll be hearing about them on the lacrosse field. Possibly within earshot of supernatural standers by.

But even with the threat of such embarrassment, he’s glad that Brett is safe.

He’d really managed to protect him. He’d done something that matters.

“On the right.” Brett leans forward as they turn the bend onto a well kept road with a number of expensive and well-kept homes.

The Jeep crawls loudly up to a large white house with with a long driveway, and Brett eagerly unbuckles.

“Hey, what you did back there..,” he says, catching Theo’s eye as he climbs out. “Thanks, man.”

Liam blinks in confusion.

What the hell had Theo done to deserve thanks?

As he follows Brett up to the tall polished door, just to see him inside, it starts to dawn on him that Brett hasn’t thanked  _ him _  for anything.

Laurie is already waiting for them on the steps. She flings her arms around Brett the moment he’s within reach, and Liam is surprised to see how warmly Brett receives it. He closes his eyes, buries his face in the top of her head and squeezes her tightly.

Liam swears he can see tears lining the corner of Brett’s eyes, and he definitely hears Laurie let out a choked sob.

“Dumbass.” she breathes when she pulls away. “Don’t do that again.”

Liam’s not sure what Brett did exactly, other than get abducted, but Brett doesn’t seem to mind her chastising.

“You got it.” he says with a smile.

“I’m going to make you some tea and a hot bath.” she says, brushing tears from her eyes as she turns back into the house. “Is Liam coming in?”

“Uh...nah, I’m good.” Liam says, now certain that he’s intruding on family time. “Just, uh, making sure he gets in alright...”

Laurie nods and disappears into the house, but Brett pauses before following her. He leans against the door frame, his eyes raking over Liam, scrutinizing him.

“So...” he says slowly, and Liam braces himself for the world’s most awkward ‘thanks for saving my life’.

But the sentence that follows is far from what Liam expects.

“Before I go - you gonna touch my face some more?”

Brett’s lips cracks into its characteristic smug smirk and Liam’s face turns bright red.

“ _ You _ ...” he fumes, unable to believe the brazen teasing. “Is that really what you have to say to me right now? You know, your fucking welcome Brett. Tracking your ass down and nearly dying to save you was a real pleasure. Hope I can do it again sometime, you asshole...”

Brett’s grin widens, and Liam feels fury surge through his veins.

“Is that really how you thank someone?”

“No.” Brett says, biting his lip. “Just how I thank you.”

“Well that really sucks, Brett...”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Want me to try again?”

Before Liam can answer, Brett’s fingers curl around the front of Liam’s shirt. Liam barely has enough time to gasp in surprise before he’s tugged forward and Brett’s teeth clamp lightly down on his lower lip.

 

*     *     *

 

It’s a risk. Brett knows that. There is absolutely no guarantee that Liam will kiss him back, but he has the feeling that he will and life is obviously too short to leave stones unturned.

Liam’s lips part in surprise, and Brett slips his tongue between them. He makes a disgruntled sound, and Brett pulls back. Maybe he was wrong, maybe Liam really didn’t want that...

But no sooner do their lips disconnect than Liam closes the distance once more, biting back with a low growl.

Liam’s hand grabs hold of his collar and he yanks his head downwards - pushing his way into Brett’s mouth.

Their tongues clash, fierce, hungry and playful against one another. Liam’s arms hook around Brett’s neck, Brett’s around Liam’s waist.

 

*     *     *

 

Scott blinks as he watches the two boys lips lock together. He isn’t surprised to see it happening - if anything, he’s probably been more aware of his beta’s feelings than Liam was himself - but there’s something about the timing that throws him off.

His eyes flicker, almost immediately, to Theo and a long-denied rush of longing swoops through his chest. He can’t forget what it felt like, not more than two hours ago, to have Theo weeping against him, his head laying vulnerably on his collarbone, his arms clinging to his torso.

In that moment, he could feel everything authentic inside Theo. The shreds of a long lost friend that had been buried beneath layers and layers of lies and defenses had been raw and exposed. Theo’s real pain, his real needs, his everything he tries to twist and hide.

He couldn’t afford the time then to let himself melt into that feeling. And now the moment has passed. He’s not sure that Theo will ever let himself be touched like that again.

He’s not sure that _  he _  can let himself touch Theo like that again.

He scan’s Theo’s face, searching for signs of that openness, that authenticity.

Theo is watching the pair on the steps as well, his face is blank but Scott can feel his chemosignals, sad and forlorn. His armor, though now donned, is weak. Thinner than usual, it’s cracks more visible.

His eyes travel over the shape of Theo’s shoulder and down his arm to where his hand lays on the seat between them.

He has to fight the urge to reach out and hold it in his own.

Eventually, Liam breaks away from Brett and approaches the car.

“Hey, so...” he starts, leaning in through Scott’s window. “I think I’m gonna stay here...keep an eye on him some.”

“Oh, is  _ that _  what they call it nowadays?” Theo quips from the passenger seat, and Scott can’t help but smirk.

“Yeah, I guess  _ he’s _  feeling better...” Liam growls back, refusing to address Theo directly. “What are you going to do with him, anyway?”

Scott quickly glances back at Theo. The chimera’s face is still blank, but he can see a darkness creeping over his eyes. A fear.

“Don’t worry about it.” Scott replies, simply, turning back to his beta. “I’ve got it under control, you just take care of Brett.”

“Sure.” Liam nods, tapping the car door and glaring threateningly at Theo for a moment before withdrawing.

“Oh and Liam?” Scott calls out to him, and Liam pauses, looking over his shoulder with a raised brow.

“Yeah?”

“Use protection.”

Theo lets out a small scoff, and a dark red blush envelopes Liam’s face.

 

*     *     *

 

Scott is smiling to himself as he pulls the Jeep back onto the road and he watches Liam and Brett disappear into the house, but Theo couldn't force himself to smile even if he wanted to.   
  
There's a sickness twisting in his stomach as he knows the moment he has been dreading is nearly upon him. Any second now, Scott is going to turn to him, and ask him where he wants to be dropped off.   
  
He'll have no answer.   
  
He has no car, no home, no money, and no friends.   
  
All of which is his own fault, he knows that, but that won't make it any easier to deal with.   
  
"You can just let me out here." He forces the words out of his mouth.   
  
It would be better just to face it, his nerves are too frayed to deal with the suspense of Scott hemming and hawing about what to do.   
  
Scott looks at him.   
  
"Here?" he asks, glancing out at the darkness outside. "Theo, there isn't even a sidewalk..."   
  
Theo shrugs, unable to meet Scott's eyes.   
  
"I'm not dropping you off on the side of the road with no shoes or wallet..."   
  
"I'll be fine." Theo says numbly. "I'm always fine..."   
  
Scott pulls the Jeep over to the side of the road, responsibly turns on the flasher on, and puts it in park.   
  
"No. You are not fine." He says, firmly. "The way I found you tonight...that wasn't even remotely close to _  fine _ ."   
  
Theo's eyes widen, as he shamefully imagines what he must have looked like when Scott arrived. Half dressed, that disgusting orderly pawing at him, chest carved open, dripping in blood and sweat and tainted water. Crying. He must have looked...beyond pathetic...   
  
"I'm sorry." Scott, perhaps sensing his thoughts, quickly amends. "That's not...that’s not what I mean..."   
  
His voice is rushed and laced with concern. He reaches for his wrist, Theo can't find it in himself to pull away.    
  
The alpha's touch is as warm and absolving as ever, his grip soft but firm. Scott's thumb slips into his palm, tenderly, and Theo has no idea what to think.   
  
"Let's just get some food, okay?"   
  
In the heat of everything that was happening, Theo had completely forgotten about the painful emptiness of his stomach.   
  
He nods, and when Scott's hand leaves his wrist to shift the gears of the Jeep, he can't help but ache to feel it again.   
  
  


*     *     *

  
The aching doesn't go away. Even as he ravenously devours a fast food burger and gulps down cool mouthfuls of coke, the ache persists.   
  
It only grows worse as Scott takes him back to his house.   
  
He doesn't object when Scott tells him to come in, or when a clean towel and clothes to sleep in is pressed into his arms, just nods and makes his way into the bathroom.   
  
By the time he's soaking in steaming hot water, his eyes closed and muscles slowly unwinding, the ache has spread to every limb in his body.   
  
Scott's scent is everywhere around him. His soap, his shampoo, his body wash. It's baked into the walls and in the fabric of the shower curtain. Everything about it makes him feel safe.   
  
And yet, still wanting.   
  
He slowly opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling.   
  
He knows what he wants, and he knows that there was once a time when Scott wanted it too. A time that Scott would have given it to him.   
  
The way Scott had looked at him when he first came back to Beacon Hills claiming to be looking for a pack...it was desirous. Theo was well aware of that. It made manipulating the alpha wolf all that much easier.   
  
Theo hadn't returned that desire back then.

Desire like that wasn't something that he felt for others. It was just a tool he could use to ensnare people with. Human touch was basically worthless to him - he belonged to the Dread Doctor's and their ways ran him.

Coldness. Practicality. That's what Theo felt because that's what he was supposed to feel.   
  
He takes a deep breath and lets his head fall beneath the surface of the hot water.   
  
Things had been different after he'd spent time beneath the ground.

When he'd been returned to the world of the living he was broken, weak, vulnerable. His body wanted things he didn’t realize it was still possible for him to want.    
  
The desire to be close to someone, intimate, had only just started to grow inside him before it had been pruned down to it's barren roots by the Dread Doctors cruel scalpel.    
  
He holds his breath beneath the water, trying to remember if the desire he feels now had been there when he was younger.   
  
His memories of that time are bleak and difficult to navigate. Devastating pain lurks behind every corner, ready to consume him if he dares to look too closely, but still he pushes.   
  
He wants to know what he felt back then.  _ How _  he felt back then.   
  
As he releases small bubbles of breath into the water, a memory of a sleepover a long time ago starts to find its way to the surface.   
  
It was the last time he'd felt anything real for someone before he'd fallen. The last time he'd felt any semblance of safety. The last time he was whole.   
  
He breaks the water's surface, gasping for air.   
  


 

*     *     *   
  


Scott flips the light on in the spare bedroom only to find that his mother has stacks and stacks of file boxes on the bed and the surrounding floor. What they're full of, he has no idea, but the fact that neither he nor Theo will have the energy for moving them is more than apparent.   
  
He sighs and flips the light off.   
  
He couldn't set Theo up on the sofa. His mom would kill him. Also, he needed to make sure he was close enough to keep an eye on. Both for his own safety and the safety of others.   
  
He gathers extra blankets and pillows from the closet and pulls them into his bedroom, trying to remind himself that Theo would probably be happy to sleep on the floor and that giving the chimera his own bed and taking the floor sofa himself probably wouldn't be appropriate.   
  
He's unfolding a blanket, shaking it out when he hears Theo's soft footsteps behind him.    
  
"Hey..." Theo's voice is quiet and soft, timid almost, and it catches Scott off guard.   
  
When he turns to face him, he's made intimately aware of the terrible flaw in his plan to share the room with Theo.   
  


Scott gave Theo the pajama pants and shirt to change into, he should be prepared to see the chimera in his cloths, but he isn’t. The way the black fabric clings and hangs off of his hips, the way the towel drapes around his neck...or maybe it’s the unfamiliar searching look in Theo’s eyes, or how his damp, towel-dried hair looks in the dim light...but he’s not ready for it.

It catches him completely and entirely unprepared, and he stares for a moment.

“H-hey...” Scott says back, his heart thudding loudly in his chest as Theo crosses to room towards him.

The look in Theo’s eyes is every bit as searching as his voice. Scott is not sure what to make of it, other than the fact that he wants to wrap his arms around him and pull him closer.

His rational brain screams at him that he should step back as Theo moves closer. Yes, he believes Theo has changed. Yes, he wants to give him a second chance. But Theo had hurt him. Killed him. He shouldn't want to have Theo close to him...

Theo looks like he wants to say something.

"What is it?" Scott whispers.

"Do you...” Theo starts slowly, his eyes flickering to the floor. “Do you remember the last time I stayed here, with you?"

Scott swallows.

Yes. He remembers.

Thoughts of it warmed his soul when Theo came back to Beacon Hills. The memory of it haunted him after Theo’s betrayal.

It was something he tried time and time again not to think about.

He had no idea that Theo remembered. Or that it meant anything to him at all.

“Yeah, I remember.” Scott says, thankful that Theo’s eyes are still cast down, because he’s not sure he can take more of that stare. “You were scared of the radiator...”

Theo lets out a small scoff.

“That’s  _ not _  what I was afraid of...” he whispers darkly.

“I know.” Scott whispers back. “I...kind of figured that out by now...”

Theo nods, and there’s a long pause.

Scott can’t help but wonder why Theo is bringing this up.

Did he somehow know that this memory tormented him? That his heart ached every time he thought about Theo’s small body pressed against his own, his hand over his hand, pretending that they couldn’t hear his parents screaming downstairs?

Did he know how sick it made him feel to know what Theo had been facing on his own at that time?

If he was doing this to get in Scott’s head, to get him to feel all the things he tries desperately hard not to feel, then it’s really working.

“Scott...” Theo starts again, his voice heavy and guilt layden. “ I know how wrong it is to even ask you this...but...”

Scott braces himself. He has no idea what Theo is going to ask for, and it’s disturbing how part of him already wants to give whatever it is to him.

“But...” he continues. “Could I sleep next to you?"

He looks Scott in the eyes. He's still shaken, that much is obvious. He looks every bit as helpless and desperate as he did when he asked for the same thing so many years ago.

"Like that, again?” Theo finishes his ask. “It doesn't mean that you forgive me, or that I'm in your pack or...or anything...I just..."

His hands are on Theo before he can stop himself, grabbing him by the arm, pulling him against his chest. There's tension in Theo's body against his own, but not resistance. He leans his head forward onto Scott's collar bone cautiously, his nose pressing slowly into Scott's neck.

Scott can smell the soft notes of Theo's scent curling up from his damp hair, feel the chimera's breath against his neck, and his grip on him tightens.

As he pushes back the covers of his bed and pulls Theo down beside him, a voice (that sounds remarkably like Stiles) is screaming in his head, telling him all the reasons why what he wants with Theo is wrong. Why what he feels is wrong. But it's drowned out by the rushing in his ears and the push of the wolf's instincts.

Theo needs him. But more than that, Theo  _ wants  _ him.

Regardless of whether Theo deserves help or not, Scott  _ wants _  to give it to him. Could that really be wrong?

It would just be one night. He could have just one night sleeping next to a person that he desperately wanted to be with. That he wants to help. That he can feel is ready to change. That he was heartsick over when he thought had been killed.

"Can you get the light?" he whispers, and Theo reaches out to the lamp.

He clicks it off and the room is smothered in darkness. Theo arranges himself on his side, his back pressed to Scott's chest. Scott lets his arm drape over Theo's waist beneath the blankets.

The unspoken implications of the position had been hard for Scott to ignore back when they were younger. As a fully-developed adult, it's nearly impossible. But if he could pretend for one night that Theo hadn't killed him, Theo could pretend to not notice what the close proximity of their bodies was doing to him.

A pang of guilt ripples through him as he recalls Theo's voice, begging Schrader to stop what he was doing. It hadn't been more than four hours ago, and here  _ he _  is, his wolf growling in his chest, begging to be fed from the same bowl.

Sleep  _ next to _ . Theo's words had been specific. Not sleep  _ with _ .

He was not going to be like that. He wasn't going to take advantage of someone vulnerable. Someone that clearly just needed help. No matter how good Theo smells.

He shifts his hips back from Theo's, and lets his head move closer on the pillow to the back of Theo's neck.

He closes his eyes, resolving himself to try to sleep, when Theo's hand finds his wrist. He gently tugs Scott forward till their bodies are folded against one another.

Scott freezes.

"Is this okay?" Theo asks, quietly.

Scott isn't quite sure how to answer.

"I...don't think that I'll be able to fall asleep like this." he supplies, honestly.

At that, Theo slides his palm over the back of Scott's hand and guides it beneath the folds of his nightshirt. Theo’s skin is smooth, more lukewarm than hot, as he presses Scott’s fingers to his flesh.

It’s beyond tempting to explore further, but Scott doesn’t budge.

“You don’t have to do this.” he whispers. “I don’t need you to do this for me. If you think this is what I want...”

Although, the fact that Scott does want it is becoming increasingly obvious by the second.

“What if I want it, too?” Theo’s voice whispers into the dark.

He moves Scott’s hand against his core, shifts his hips so his back slides ever so slightly against Scott.

Scott drops his face down into Theo’s hair, and breathes his scent deep into his lungs.

Theo shudders as Scott’s lips tickle the back of his neck, lets out a soft raspy moan, and arcs his body against Scott’s.

Scott’s hand moves to grip his hip, his fingers grinding into his flesh, and when turns slightly to face him, and Scott yanks him forcefully around.

Their lips meet, open mouthed and lock together. Scott tugs Theo’s thigh over his hip, rolls on top of him, and grinda all of his weight down into Theo’s body.

His hands move under Theo’s clothes, Theo’s nails dig into his back, and the air between them is filled with short pants as they their bodies rub desperately against one another.

Clothes are lost beneath the blankets and, even though there is no one there to witness their act, Scott finds himself pulling them both completely beneath the sheets as well. Immediately he feels the chimera’s hot mouth, perhaps emboldened by the additional layer of privacy, start to work it’s way down his chest, biting and sucking at his skin as it goes.

He groans as he feels the first hot strokes of Theo’s tongue on his throbbing length. His hands find their way into Theo’s hair, and a quiet sigh leaves his lips as his erection is brought slowly into the tight suction of Theo’s mouth.

Scott closes his eyes and lets Theo bob his head slowly up and down. His mind blanks out and for a moment nothing in the world exists beyond the tight pull and draw of Theo’s soft lips and the occasional slippery swipe of his tongue. He allows it to go on for several moments before he gently pulls Theo off so he can deeper beneath the blankets with him.

He finds Theo’s shoulder with his teeth and chews his way across the chimera’s collarbone, up his neck and back to his mouth.

Theo tugs him closer, twists his body so Scott’s waist is between his thighs again. His streigning length pressed to Scott’s core.

 

*     *     *

 

The air is disappearing fast beneath the blankets, but it doesn’t stop Theo from biting desperately at Scott’s mouth. He’d let Scott suffocate him as long as it meant he wouldn’t have to feel their bodies part.

The aching that had consumed him in the bath bleeds into a smouldering need wherever Scott touches him. It builds faster than Theo ever could have expected it to through his usually cold body. Scott’s skin against his own is like a lit match dropped into a barren dry field.

The unfamiliar intensity of the sensation would unnerve him if it weren’t for the stabilizing force Scott’s presence has on him.

Theo can barely breathe as he feels the alphas slicked head slowly start to press into him. He closes his eyes, soaking up the sensation of every ridge of the thick length pushing into him inch by slow pleasurable inch.

In moments he’s panting, moaning, and writhing in painful gratification as Scott starts to thrust into him. His nails rake down Scott’s shoulders and dig into his biceps, clinging to the alpha like he has absolutely no right to.

Before he can stop himself he’s panting Scott’s name, listening to Scott groan his in return as his body is jolted by the building strength of the alpha’s rhythm inside him.

The blanket slips down Scott’s shoulders from the force of the thrusts and a cool wave of air hits Theo’s skin.

Suddenly, Scott’s hands are on his waist and his hips are yanked up to meet the series of rough thrusts. Theo starts to gasp as each hits him in a way that makes the sound muffle in his ears, his vision start to blank out.

His claws rip into Scott’s arms. His hips buck, his body arches, and he swears as pleasure starts to overtake him.

 

*     *     *

 

Feeling how close Theo is, Scott reaches for his length and strokes him to the fast rhythm of their hips. Theo’s thrown over the edge instantly. He swears loudly and clings to Scott as his body wreathes in pleasure. 

Scott bites savagely down onto Theo’s neck, his own claws digging into the chimera’s skin as he slams into him without restraint, riding the tight waves of Theo’s orgasm into his own. Pleasure rushes through him and his body seizes up. His cry is muffled by Theo’s neck and he tastes a something metallic as his teeth break Theo’s skin.

He collapses down onto Theo, aware of nothing but the fact that Theo’s arms are draped loosely around his waist still, refusing to be parted from him. It’s several long moments of panting and gasping for breath before Scott feels any semblance of rationality return to him.

He pushes himself up onto his elbows and surveys the bite on Theo’s neck.

It had been made with his blunt human teeth.  _ Thankfully _ .

Theo’s eyes find his. His cheeks are still flushed, his chest rising and falling heavily. Scott can feel the exhaustion setting into his body, but there’s a nervous sort of confusion in his eyes. Like he’s not sure what happens next, and he’s too afraid to ask.

Truth be told, Scott isn’t sure what happens next either, but he isn’t as concerned.

Things are complicated between them - now more so than ever - but from the moment he’d received that voicemail of the chimera begging for help, he’d already made up his mind. If he could find Theo, if it wasn’t too late, he was going to try to save him.

His mind falls back to how he’d heard Theo calling his name at the powerplant, whispered as a desperate, hopeless prayer to the universe. Somehow, the universe had allowed him to both hear and answer it. He’d been able to cross a barrier of Mountain Ash, something he hadn’t been able to do since he first became a True Alpha.

There are so many unanswered questions. About their past, about their future, even about the dangers that surrounds them now, but he is certain about one thing. After forty-eight hours of worrying that it was too late, he’s not going let Theo slip through his fingers again.

If Theo wants to change, Scott will help him.

It doesn’t matter to him if Theo deserves his help, it only matters that he needs it. And Scott knows there’s good in him, even if it’s hard to see.

He brushes a stray piece of hair off Theo’s forehead, unsure how to offer him the reassurance he needs.

“Different than when we were ten, right?” Theo asks, breaking Scott’s thoughts.

His tone measured and nonchalant, but Scott can make out the faintest hint of anxiousness in it.

“Yeah...” he agrees, a smile forming on his lips. “Different...”

He rolls onto his side, pulling Theo with him. He lets his hand slide down the smooth line of Theo’s shoulder blades to the curve of his spine and feels Theo relax against him. The momentary concern dissipating once again into exhaustion.

They’ll talk tomorrow, Scott resolves himself. For the time being, he just wants to enjoy this.

 

*     *     *

 

Theo buries his face into Scott’s neck, allows his himself to bake in the grounding heat that radiates from the alpha’s body. His muscles relax under the gentle touch of Scott’s hand sliding slowly over his back, he sighs as Scott’s fingers reach into his hair and stroke his scalp.

“I’m sorry.” he whispers into Scott’s neck.

“For what?” Scott asks, his voice sleepy.

“For everything.” Theo answers, honestly.

“We’ll figure it out.” Scott says, firm and reassuring in a way that it has no right to be.

“You know...when you say that I almost believe you...”

“Because you know I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“Scott...what I did...to you...”

“I don’t know.” Scott answers honestly. “I just believe that we can. I...I think it’s worth it.”

Theo bites his lip. He doesn’t fight with Scott, or tell him that he’s far too optimistic for his own good. Instead, his exhausted mind surrenders.

He chooses to believe him, at least for the moment, and soak in the fortifying fact that  _ someone _  had thought he was worth saving.

Even after everything.

He melts entirely into Scott’s hold, and lets sleep finally overtakes him.

As his mind slips into unconsciousness, Scott’s hot breath rolling over him follows him into his dreams. For the first time in years his mind dares to wander to a possible future that isn’t clouded by the past.

One where Scott is right, and somehow, he finds a way to make things up to him.

  
  


*     *     *

 

It's quarter after four when Gabe wakes to the sensation of something sharp cutting into his hand.    
  
The sleep, aided by anesthetic given to him for his wounded leg, was difficult to come out of, but the searing pain and adrenaline rips him from his stupor like a sinner cast down from heaven.

 

Falling from his wheelchair, he clatters to the hospital floor, unsure of where he is for a moment.   
  
His hand is bleeding, and as he brings it to his chest in the dark he can make out five small cuts.   
  
There's a heavy animalistic, yet somehow familiar, breathing above him.    
  
He slowly raises his eyes to see a figure hunched over him, saliva dripping off a set of massive canine teeth, claws out, with a pair of glowing yellow eyes.   
  
It tilts its head back and a ferocious roar rips through the quiet hospital.   
  
  


*     *     *   
  


  
Brett is laying on his sofa, Liam collapsed on top of him, drooling slightly on his chest when a distant howl rouses him from his sleep. He and Liam wake simultaneously to the sound.   
  
Despite Scott's earlier teasing, there had been no need for protection just yet. With both boys exhausted from the past two sleepless nights, they'd only just barely had enough energy to make their way onto Brett's sofa and snuggle in for half a sports movie before they'd both crashed hard into slumber. There would be plenty of time for that in the days to come.   
  
Loralie must have tossed a blanket onto them before going to bed herself.   
  
"What's that?" Liam asks, sitting up in groggy concern.   
  
"Don't know." Brett strains his ears, but there's no farther sound. "Maybe call Scott?"   
  
  


*     *     *

  
  
Scott's eyes snap open at the sound of the Call. He jumps onto his feet, breaking away from the tranquil nest of sheets and limbs that had been wrapped around him.   
  
"What?" Theo's voice calls out to him as he scrambles to find his clothes. "What is it?"   
  
"Nolan." Scott says, still shirtless, his jeans half zipped as he pulls his boots on. "The Bite took. I can hear him..."   
  
His phone lights up on the dresser with Liam's name.   
  
"Yes, Liam? Yeah-yes, it's him, I hear it. I'm going now. No, you stay with Brett, I've got it-"   
  
When he reaches for his jacket, he finds Theo already fully dressed, handing it to him.   
  
"Can I come with you?" He asks, and Scott pauses, hand frozen on the jacket.   
  
It's more than just an ask to tag along. They both know that.   
  
Liam's voice buzzes in his ear, a slough of questions. He answers them, reiterating that Liam should stay put, but his eyes stay locked on Theo's.   
  
Once he has assurances that Liam will do as he's told he hangs up the phone.   
  
"Yeah." he agrees, taking the jacket being offered. "Yeah, you can come with me."   
  
As Scott heads down the stairs and Theo falls into step behind him, a strength that he hasn't felt in a long time begins to stir in his bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this one took much longer to finish than I wanted, what with the Big Bang and sceo week sapping up my time, but I’m glad I finally got it done. Thank you so much for sticking with it (and extra thanks to the people that prodded me to finish). I really really hope the conclusion is satisfying. It’s the longest fic I’ve ever completed and there was a lot to wrap up, so please let me know what you think!!
> 
> I may do a sequel if I get a solid plot idea. I’d like to explore the relationships (and werewolf!nolan) a bit more, so I made this a series. You can bookmark the series so you’ll get a notification when/if I do write more:  
> [Wolves at War](https://archiveofourown.org/series/894690) But for the time being I’m going to call this the end. :-)
> 
> I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please comment and let me know how you like the ending.  
> I do take requests and/or plot ideas, so please feel free to comment here or send me an Ask on [my Tumblr](https://demonzdust.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> **More Scott x Theo fics by me:**   
>  [The Road After Trilogy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14330802/chapters/33070752)   
>  [What Should Have Been Ours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9862829/chapters/22131167)   
>  [Adoption](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7802056%0A%20rel=)


End file.
